My Lord Murderer (27 page)

It was an immense relief when, at about three in the afternoon, George decided to find the nearest inn and put up for the night. The sky had darkened alarmingly, and the snow was falling thickly enough to make visibility difficult for the driver. “Do you know of any suitable inns in the vicinity?” George called to the coachman.

“Yes, sir!” shouted the driver through the wind, relieved to learn that a warm, dry room and a tankard of ale were not far off. “There’s the Rose and Crown, not more’n three miles north o’ Grantham.”

The Rose and Crown turned out to be a rather modest establishment with a large tap room and two small private parlors on its main floor, and a number of small bedrooms on the upper floor under the thatched eaves. Gwen asked to be shown to her bedroom immediately, leaving George to invent, for the benefit of the innkeeper, whatever tale he felt was suitable to explain their need for two bedrooms. When she reappeared, feeling warmer, less queasy and somewhat refreshed, she was able to greet George with a ready smile. “I’ve taken a private parlor,
sister
dear,” he said with a wink, “so let us go into it and warm ourselves. I’ve ordered tea and mulled wine.”

It was the larger parlor of the two private rooms available, a cheerful room with a wide fireplace in which an enormous log was blazing. She held her hands to the fire, comforted by the cosy atmosphere, although the sound of the angry wind outside the windows told her that her fear of a real storm was rapidly becoming a reality. “Do you think we are in danger of being snowed in?” she asked George in concern.

“I don’t think so,” he said contentedly. “It will all probably blow away by morning. Come here, love, and sit near me on this settee.”

“Do you think that would be quite
sisterly
, brother dear?” she teased. “I’ll do quite well here near the fire.”

A serving maid appeared soon after with a heavily laden tray holding tea things, sandwiches, and two mugs of steaming wine. The tea soothed Gwen’s spirit as well as her stomach, and a pleasant half-hour passed at the table. When the maid had removed the dishes, however, and George closed the door carefully and looked at Gwen with an amorous gleam, she began to realize the awkwardness of her position. Something that she would not recognize as fear clutched at her chest. Not wishing an embarrassing struggle, she smiled at George wanly and said that the journey had tired her and she would rest in her room until dinner time. George could not object. As he watched her go, he told himself that there was plenty of time. The snow would not soon abate, and a whole lovely evening lay ahead.

In her room, Gwen found that she could not remain lying down. Restlessly she paced back and forth from the doorway to the window, only five paces from one side of the room to the other. Every once in a while she paused to stare out of the window. It was almost dark, but she could see the snow falling thickly and swirling wildly in the wind. What am I doing here? she asked herself over and over. Finally she sat down at the edge of the bed and tried to think clearly. She had come here to marry George Pollard. But she was not happy about a Gretna Green wedding. When it became known, it would sound sordid. Was
that
what troubled her? If so, all she need do is tell George that she would prefer to be wed in London—if he wished, just as secretly—by special license. They could return to town as soon as the snow stopped.

But that was not it. The truth of the matter was that she did not want to marry George at all. What had made her take so rash a step? She must have known, deep inside, that she was making a second marital mistake. She tried to remember the reasoning that had brought her to accept a proposal she had never before even considered seriously. It had something to do with Drew, she remembered. The look on his face at the end of the race. Was she foolish enough to have let her reaction to Drew drive her into the arms of the first available man? No, it was more. It was something about George. George had reminded her of Edward. She had failed with Edward, so she wanted to make up for that failure by being the kind of wife to George she had not been before.

How silly that idea seemed now. George was not like Edward at all. Edward was a
boy
, and because of his youth, Gwen might have been able to change him—though Hazel insisted that she could not have done so. But George was a man. There was something in his eyes that told her he could not easily be manipulated. She could never change him, not without love. If she’d learned anything in her first marriage, it should have been that. She had failed Edward because she did not love him.

She raised her head, the words she had just thought repeating themselves in her ears as if she had spoken them. “I failed Edward because I did not love him.” Suddenly it all seemed so clear. She had expected more of herself than was humanly possible. Pushed into a youthful marriage by unthinking parents, she had found herself in a situation
not of her making
and beyond her capabilities to correct. Drew had not killed all hope when he’d pulled that trigger—hope had been dead long before.

She got up and went to the window under the low dormer and sank down on the cushioned window seat. Leaning her forehead against the cold window-glass, she shut her eyes and saw Rowle’s face—the petulant underlip, the dark eyes so wild and stormy, the hair that hung in careless curls about his pale face. Poor, poor Edward, she thought, and the tears flowed from under her closed lids and dripped unheeded down her cheeks. When she finally stopped crying, after how many minutes she didn’t know, she discovered that she’d come to a decision. To marry George would be a mistake worse than she had made before. She had married Edward Rowle in ignorance. She knew better now.

Gwen lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. She knew just what she had to do. She would rest for a while. Then, when she was calmer, she would go down and tell George the truth—that she did not love him, and that a marriage without love would be a disaster for them both. This resolved, she sighed in relief and turned on her side. Before she realized it, she had dropped off into a sound sleep.

George had played solitaire for over an hour, had dozed by the fire, had gone up to his room to change into evening clothes, and had ordered dinner, but Gwen had not yet appeared. It was close to seven o’clock. Night had come without any diminution of the wind that howled outside the windows or the snow that fell heavily and was quickly accumulating in high drifts. George was just about to send the serving wench to wake Gwen, when he heard a commotion in the hall outside his door. Voices and the stamp of boots gave evidence that the innkeeper was receiving some new arrivals. He wondered who could be abroad in such weather, but before he had a chance to investigate, the door to the parlor opened, and on the threshold stood Drew Jamison, still in his greatcoat and hat and carrying his riding whip, regarding him with smoldering eyes.

“Good Lord! Jamison!” George said, too surprised to read Drew’s expression with any accuracy.

“Where is she?” Drew asked.

“What?” asked George stupidly, not seeing any connection between his elopement and Drew’s unexpected arrival.

“Where’s Gwen?” Drew said, taking a step into the room.

George began to feel distinctly uneasy. Was Jamison here to scotch his plans? The idea was ridiculous, but what else would explain his question? “Gwen?” he asked innocently, playing for time.

Drew strode into the room and grasped George’s neckerchief in one gloved hand. “Where is she?” he asked between clenched teeth.

“Upstairs in her bedroom, asleep,” George said, trying to keep his voice matter-of-fact, “though I don’t know what business it is of yours.”

Drew released him and turned to the door. “If I learn that you’ve so much as laid a finger on her,” he said in a voice that boded no good, “you’ll learn what business it is of mine!”

“She was exhausted from the journey,” George said quickly. “She’ll not thank you for waking her.”

Drew hesitated. George used the hesitation to his advantage. “She said she’d be down for dinner. I expect she’ll appear quite shortly. Why don’t you take off your coat, Jamison, and have a drink?”

Drew gave George a long look, turned, and locked the door to the passageway. He pocketed the key, threw his hat and whip on a chair, and peeled off his gloves. Dropping them beside his hat, he took off the greatcoat and threw it over the chair. “Why on earth did you lock the door?” George asked, holding out a glass of wine.

Deliberately disdaining the wine and the question, Drew went to the fire and warmed his hands. “I suggest, Pollard, that you avoid an ugly scene and take yourself off before she comes down.”

“Take myself off? Listen here, Jamison, I don’t know what your game is, but you’re not going to give
me
orders!”

Drew turned from the fire. “But I know what
your
game is, you see,” he said, dangerously quiet.

“If you mean that Gwen and I are on our way to be married, you must also know that she is of age, that she is going willingly, and that I don’t care for your interference in something that in no way concerns you,” George said with a sneer.

“You’ll shortly care for my interference a great deal less, you damned lying blackguard,” Drew snarled. He crossed to George in two strides and swung fiercely at his jaw. The blow connected with a sharp crack, and George went crashing to the floor. He blinked up dazedly at Drew who stood over him rubbing the knuckles of his right hand. “So you’re going to marry her, are you?” Drew asked coldly. “And what about Miss Plumb?”

“Miss Pl—?” George muttered, confounded. The guilt on his face was all the evidence Drew needed. Turning his back on George, he returned to the fire. “Yes, we guessed your little game. Now, oblige me, please, by getting out of here before I give in to temptation and choke you to death.”

A wave of hatred and fury swept over George, so strong that the pain in his jaw was forgotten. He got to his feet and leapt at Drew like a tiger. The two men fell to the floor, knocking over the fireplace pokers as they went down. The pokers clanged loudly on the hearth. George gripped Drew’s throat fiercely, and as they rolled on the floor, Drew pulled at those clutching fingers with all his strength. At last he pulled them loose, kicked Pollard away from him, and managed to get up on one knee. He knelt there a moment to catch his breath, suddenly aware of the banging on the door and the shouting in the passageway. Meanwhile, Pollard reached for the nearest chair and, getting clumsily to his knees, he flung it at Drew with all his strength. It struck Drew on his back, and he fell heavily and lay still.

On the wooden settee set against the wall opposite the fireplace, Pollard had laid his coat, hat, and cane. He got up unsteadily and stumbled over to the bench. He picked up the cane, quickly unscrewed the handle, and pulled out the sword.

Drew lifted his head dizzily, but he could see Pollard’s boots coming toward him. He reached for the table leg nearest him and pulled himself up in time to see Pollard lunging at him with an evil-looking sword. At the last moment, Drew swung aside, and caught Pollard around the waist with one arm, then grappled for the sword with his free hand. The two men struggled desperately—Drew’s hand clenched on George’s wrist, forcing the sword into inactivity, the other arm holding Pollard firmly at the waist, pinioning him to Drew’s side and preventing him from moving freely. They lurched dangerously around the room, knocking over chairs and grunting for breath.

The shouting in the hall and the banging on the door became louder but went completely unheeded. At last, Drew managed to place his leg behind Pollard and shoved him backward. Pollard stumbled over Drew’s extended leg. At that moment, Drew look his arm from Pollard’s waist and reached up for the sword, pulling at the blade with all his strength. He felt the sharp edge of the blade cut into his palm, but there was no pain. The tug, coming at the moment when Pollard had lost his balance, caused Pollard to release the sword. Drew flung it aside and smashed his right fist into Pollard’s face, a crushing blow. Drew felt—with satisfaction—the crunch of broken teeth and the blood that gushed from Pollard’s nose as he went crashing to the wall and slid to the floor unconscious.

Drew stood for a moment trying to catch his breath. Then, seeing the sword on the floor near the fireplace, he bent to pick it up. He looked at it interestedly until he became aware of a tingle in the palm of his left hand. He looked at it in surprise. A deep gash had been cut diagonally from the first finger to the heel of the hand, and the blood was flowing profusely. He looked around for something with which to bind it, but at that moment a key was turned in the lock and the door of the parlor was flung open. There in the doorway stood the innkeeper, the ostler, and a veritable crowd of strangers, staring at him with mouths agape. But in front of the crowd, on the threshold of the room, stood a wide-eyed Gwen.

Her eyes were fixed on his face, as his were on hers. He watched as she suddenly swept the room with her glance. She saw Pollard at last—stretched out on the floor, his head braced against the wall, the blood from his nose dripping down onto his neckcloth and forming an ever-widening stain—and her eyes flew back to Drew. He saw them widen with horror as they flicked down to his hands. Drew looked down. In one hand he held the sword. The other was dripping with blood.

Chapter Sixteen

D
REW FLUNG THE SWORD
away and strode to the door. Grasping Gwen by the arm, he pulled her over the threshold. Then he glared at the gaping crowd. “Go about your business!” he ordered, and slammed the door in their faces. The smear of blood his hand left on the door and the sting in his palm reminded him of his wound. Involuntarily, he looked down at it, and Gwen pulled out of his grasp. She backed away from him in wide-eyed terror until the door stopped her. Trembling, she leaned against it. “Oh, my God!” she said in an agonized moan. “You’ve murdered him!”

“Don’t be a fool, woman,” Drew said shortly. “Go and get your things together!” And with his good hand he fumbled at his neckcloth which he untied and pulled from his neck.