Joan Wolf (13 page)

She felt immediately better at the thought of doing something about her dilemma, and determined to go this afternoon, after she had given Robin his lesson. And, since she had been having such a dangerous time with other conveyances lately, she decided to ride.

There was a ripple of surprise when she appeared at the stables dressed in her riding habit, and even more surprise when she announced that she would personally saddle her mare. There were, however, no questions. The gossip about her accidents was not confined to the upper class of Dartmouth alone.

Laura carefully examined each piece of tack before she put it on the mare. The bridle was intact. The stirrup leathers on her saddle were in equally good condition and her girth was whole and soft and clean with saddle soap. She checked twice to see that it was tight enough before she finally mounted and rode out of the stable yard. There had been absolute silence the whole time she had been in the stable.

It was not until she was cantering along the path that Laura realized how confined she had been feeling, how good it was to be out and exercising again. It was perhaps a twenty-minute ride to the rectory, and Laura was received graciously by Mrs. Norris. The rector was not in at present, she told Laura regretfully. He had gone to visit several sick parishioners. Mrs. Norris expected him back shortly, however, and asked if Lady Dartmouth would care to wait.

Laura said she would, and sat down to have a pleasant cup of tea with the rector’s wife. Mrs. Norris made absolutely no mention of Laura’s accidents, but chatted calmly and amusingly about the doings of her children. Laura had always liked the rector’s wife and now she found herself more and more impressed with the tact and the quite genuine goodness of the woman.

“You are fortunate to have such lovely children,” she said sincerely. “I want very much to have children as well, but so far ...”

Mrs. Norris looked at Laura’s unhappy face and smiled gently. “It was almost a year before I conceived Richard,” she said comfortingly. “And now look—I have five. It doesn’t always happen right away. I shouldn’t worry about it if I were you, Lady Dartmouth.”

 Laura brightened. “A year?” she said.

“Yes. You haven’t been married for nearly that long. And I should imagine things are rather ... tense… just at present. That doesn’t help.” It was the closest she came to mentioning the situation at Castle Dartmouth. After an hour, when the rector still had not come in, Laura took her leave. She had not accomplished her purpose, but she felt much better for her talk with his wife.

* * * *

Laura took her favorite shortcut across the park on her way home. It was a lovely sunny day and the mare seemed as pleased as she to be galloping along on the spring-softened turf. They approached the ha-ha at a strong, steady gallop and the mare’s ears flicked forward. Laura leaned forward over her neck, saying, “Now, my lovely.” The mare took off with faultless precision; this was a jump she had made countless times before. They were in the air over the ditch when the world was shattered by a blinding shaft of light. Laura could see nothing. She felt the mare falling beneath her, and more from instinct than from reason, she pushed herself out of the saddle. She hit the ground and knew no more.

When she awoke she was in her own bed. “She’s coming round now,” said a man’s voice, and she opened her eyes to see Dr. Redding. “There you are, my lady,” he said encouragingly. “How do you feel?”

“My head hurts,” she said faintly after a minute.

“I imagine it must,” he replied sympathetically. “You took quite a nasty fall.”

There was a movement behind the doctor, and Mark came into view. “What happened?” she asked him.

“We were hoping you could tell us,” he answered in a tense voice. “You were jumping Annabel over the ha-ha when she fell.”

“Yes.” Laura remembered it now—the flash of light that had splintered the day. “Annabel?” she asked.

No one answered her at first, and she struggled to push herself up. “Lie still, Laura!” in Mark’s sharp voice overrode the doctor’s more temperate “Please don’t disturb yourself, Lady Dartmouth.”

Laura laid back, her head throbbing, and Mark said, “The mare broke her leg, Laura. I’m sorry.” She looked at him and for a moment saw real anguish in his eyes. “Thank God you had the presence of mind to jump clear of her. If she had fallen on you, you might have been killed.”

She closed her eyes. “That’s a phrase I seem to be hearing a great deal of these days,” she said.

The doctor coughed. “You most assuredly have a concussion, Lady Dartmouth. I want you to stay in bed for a few days.”

“Yes, doctor,” she said listlessly.

“I am leaving a sleeping draft for you. Rest is most important.”

“Yes,” said Laura again. “Thank you, doctor.” When she opened her eyes again, both Dr. Redding and Mark had gone.

* * * *

She obeyed the doctor and spent the next few days in her room. At least there, she thought, she was safe. But she was not safe elsewhere; that was now perfectly plain.

Mark did not come to see her. It was from the housekeeper that she learned Evans had seen her fall and brought her back to the house. The ubiquitous Evans, she thought.

Why would anyone want her dead? The evidence all pointed to Mark, but he had no
reason
to wish her ill. She had some money, but he had a great deal more. She simply could not believe, as Giles had suggested, that Mark would act without a motive.

The evidence, she thought. What was the evidence?

First, there was the incident at Dartmouth Castle. Mark had suggested that she go up to the North Tower, and he had called her from the courtyard so that she would almost certainly lean over the parapet to answer him. It had only been by the luck of her caught cloak that she had not fallen to her death. But then, she remembered also, Mark had rescued her. If he had wanted her dead, surely he would have left her there—or pushed her over when there was no one to see what he was about.

Then there was the phaeton, with the sabotaged wheel. Almost anyone had access to the carriage house. The damage did not have to be done by anyone from the estate.

There was the incident at the lake. The boat had been meant for her; she was dead certain of that. And Mark had been on the scene, which was unaccountable when one looked at his habitual routine.

And now the accident at the ha-ha. Someone had shone a mirror into the eyes of the mare, someone who must have been hiding among the trees, someone who knew she had gone out and who knew how she would be returning home.

The evidence stacked up neatly and made quite a damning case, she thought. And in the eyes of the world, Mark was already responsible for the death of another young woman. It was virtually impossible to refrain from holding him culpable.

It was while she was lying on her chaise longue watching Robin build with blocks that the answer came to her. The more she thought about it, the clearer it became. She thought of Mark’s face, of how he had looked this last month, and bitter anger began to burn in her heart. Why hadn’t she seen it before? she castigated herself. Of course there was a motive; she had just been too self-involved and frightened to see it.

Chapter Seventeen

It was not until three days after her accident that she saw Mark. She was in the nursery tucking Robin into bed when he came into the room. Together they bent over the child, and then, as he closed the nursery door behind him, Mark said quietly, “I must talk to you.”

“Yes,” said Laura. “I want to talk to you as well. Come down to my room.”

They walked in silence down the stairs and along the corridor to Laura’s bedroom. She was feeling tired and went to sit in one of the chairs in front of the fire, gesturing Mark to the other. He shook his head and stayed by the door, as if afraid to trust himself to come any closer.

“Someone shone a mirror into the mare’s eyes,” she said without preamble. “That’s why she fell.”

“I know,” he replied in a colorless voice. “Evans found it among the trees.” He put a hand up to his forehead for a minute and then said, “Laura, I want you to go away from Castle Dartmouth. Go to your parents or to Aunt Maria. You are well enough to travel now, so I suggest you leave tomorrow. You may take Robin with you.”

“If I do that,” she replied soberly, “everyone will most certainly blame you.”

“What does it matter?” he said with weary bitterness. “They can’t blame me any more than they do now, more than I do myself for keeping you here for as long as I have.”

She looked at his shadowed face. “Mark,” she said very softly, “darling, who hates you so much that he would try to destroy you like this?”

She had thought he was still before, but at her words he went, if possible, even stiller. “What do you mean?” he said.

“I mean that these accidents aren’t really directed at me, are they? They are meant for you—to destroy your good name, your marriage, your career, perhaps even your sanity. Why, Mark? Why? And who?”

“God, Laura, I don’t know!” The words were a cry of anguish. “I’ve racked my brain until I
did
think I was going insane, but I don’t know! All I know is someone is using you to get at me. And I can’t allow it to continue any longer. The next time, you might not be lucky. You must get away from here!”

“Only if you’ll go with me,” she said firmly, and stood up.

There was a pause; then his shoulders came away from the door in a kind of a lunge and he was across the room and had her tightly in his arms. He held on to her as a drowning man about to go down for the last time might hold onto a safety device that someone has thrown to him. Laura put her own arms about him, pressing herself against him, feeling the strong muscles of his back under her hands. They stood like that, locked together, for quite some time. Then, reluctantly, he loosened his hold a little and held her away so he could look into her face.

 “How did you know?” he asked shakily.

“I didn’t know until yesterday,” she answered honestly. “I was so confused ... and scared, too. Everything seemed to point to you, yet somehow I couldn’t make myself believe that you were capable of murder. It just went against every instinct I had, to believe that of you. But it seemed as if I
had
to believe it. It wasn’t until yesterday, when the thought crossed my mind that
you
were being as badly hurt by this business as I was, that the truth finally dawned

on me.”

He looked very gravely into her face. “Everyone else seemed to believe I was capable of murder.” The bitterness was there again under the deep steady notes of his voice. “Why couldn’t you?”

She flushed a little. “Everyone else isn’t married to you. You have always been so ... so good to me.” She bit her lip. “I’m putting this badly. I mean, the way you behaved to me on our wedding night ... well, a man like that just doesn’t go around murdering people.”

For the first time in weeks there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. “How did I behave to you on our wedding night?” he asked.

She looked at his shoulder. “You were so gentle, so understanding... I knew you hadn’t married me for love, but you have always ... I mean, you ...” She glanced up at him and saw the amusement. “Oh, you know what I mean!”

“I think perhaps you had better explain it a little more,” he said teasingly.

She ignored him. “And then, the accidents were so clumsy. If you wanted to get rid of me, you would have been much cleverer. Why, you’re a scientist! You don’t need to do stupid things like sawing through phaeton wheels so everyone would be sure to notice.

 Really, the more I thought about it, the clearer it became that the accidents were staged not to kill me but to throw suspicion on you.” She put her cheek against his chest. “I’m only sorry it took me so long to see it. But you ... went away, rather. If I could have talked to you about it, I would have understood sooner.” She raised her head and looked up at him.
“Why
didn’t you tell me, Mark?”

He looked over her head, his eyes concealed by half-lowered lashes. “I couldn’t. There had been all that talk about Caroline—how I had driven her to her death—and now there were these strange accidents befalling you. How could I expect you to believe that I wasn’t some deranged wife-slayer? Everyone else believed it of me fast enough. How could I expect you to trust me with your safety? I didn’t have the
right
to ask that of you.”

 His eyes left the fire and came down to focus on her uplifted face. “I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me,” he said slowly. “And that I just could not have borne.”

Her mouth quivered a little. “Oh, darling,” she murmured. “I think I knew all along that it was impossible for you to hurt anyone. It was like a nightmare, like something out of
Macbeth,
where all the world is turned upside down and ‘nothing is but what is not.’“

His hands very gently cupped her face. “I should have known,” he said shakily. “I should have known that you were not like anyone else in the world.” Then his mouth came down on hers and he was kissing her with a passionate intensity that awoke an instant response in her. She rose up on tiptoe and clung to him tightly. “Who said I didn’t marry you for love?” he murmured finally against her hair.

“You did.” She released her grip a little so she could look at him. “You said our marriage was a ‘solution,’ that you needed a mother for Robin, that you needed more children because one wasn’t enough to ‘secure the succession.’“ There was a half-reproachful, half-accusatory note in her voice as she quoted those last words.

He looked a little sheepish. “Did I really say that?”

“You did.”

“Well, I was trying to sound practical, Laura. I wanted you to marry me, you see. I wanted it very badly. I didn’t want to frighten you away.”

“You almost did!” she said indignantly. “You sounded horrible!”

“I’m sorry, love.” He gathered her close again and put his cheek against her hair. “When you walked into the library that first day, I thought that I had never seen anyone more lovely in my life. To think that
you
were this motherly Mrs. Templeton Aunt Maria had written me about!”