So Enchanting (31 page)

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Authors: Connie Brockway

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General

BOOK: So Enchanting
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“There’s nothing to forgive,” Hayden replied staunchly. “You are a creative, resourceful, and imaginative young woman who found herself in an unbearable situation and had the wherewithal and courage to do something about it,” he said, and he meant it. By God, she
would
be the making of him.
He fell to his knees before her, startling her. “You must marry me. You have to marry me. My life will be meaningless if you are not by my side.”
She gazed at him shyly, a dimple appearing in her cheek. “Of course I’ll marry you. I was only waiting for you to ask.”
“I wanted to do it all properly, and ask my father ’s permission first.”
“Why?”
“That’s how it’s done.”
She laughed, a sweet, soft sound. “Oh, Hayden, I am afraid I have a lot to learn about how things are done. Just look at the mess I’ve made of our courtship! I manipulated, lied, staged an attempt . . .” Her voice petered out.
“What?”
“I was not lying about Bernard McGowan. He tried to kill me.”
She held his gaze somberly, and his own did not waver. “Why do you think McGowan shot at you?”
She nodded, appreciating the question. “I heard gunfire almost every day for the first ten years of my life. I know the sound of the different firearms: the pop of a pistol, the crack of a rifle, the sound of a carbine. I know how quickly various firearms can be reloaded.

 

“The man firing at me shot twice in a matter of seconds from a rifle. Only a bolt-action rifle can fire that quickly, and that is a military-issued weapon. Almost all the rifles in Little Firkin are single-shot breechloaders passed down from father to son. I doubt there’s a bolt-action in town.
“And one more thing,” she said quietly. “Bolt-action rifles are used primarily by sharpshooters. Bernard was a sharpshooter in India, and he has such a rifle. Both Fanny and I have seen it.”
Gads. What a woman!
“You pack. We have to get you out of here. Then we’ll rouse Grey and send for the constabulary and—”
“Lord Sheffield won’t take me with you. Don’t you see? He won’t believe me. He’ll think it’s another ploy. He has no reason to trust me, and he’ll think I have simply . . . beguiled you.”
She had a point. “Not if you tell him about the rifle.”
“Why would he believe that? I could have just as easily made that up, too.” She gazed at him sadly. “No, I’m afraid my lies have caused me to forfeit the right to Lord Sheffield’s aid, unless I can prove to him Bernard’s involvement.”
“What of Mrs. Walcott? Surely she will believe you?”
“She might eventually. But she is hurt right now. You should see her, Hayden. Her eyes are empty, her face devoid of all animation.” The state of her companion obviously deeply affected her. “I tried to talk to her earlier, but she would not come out of her room. She only responded, ‘Not now, Amelie. I am not angry, but not
now
.’
“Besides,” she added, “Fanny can’t decide that I should go. As my guardian’s representative only Lord Sheffield has the authority to do that.”
“Then I’ll have to find some evidence to persuade him to take you with us,” Hayden said with determination.
“But how?”
“I’ll have to go to McGowan’s house. If he’s fabricated having gone away, he wouldn’t risk staying there and being seen. But he might have left some evidence behind. Some explanation might present itself as to why he wants you . . .”
“Dead.”
“Dead,” Hayden repeated soberly.
She nodded. “Let’s go.”
He took a deep breath. He’d expected this. “You aren’t coming along with me. You’ll wait here.”
“No, I won’t,” she said.
“It’s ridiculous for you even to think of coming,” he returned, growing a bit vexed.
“It’s
ridiculous
,” she replied carefully, “for you even to think of going without me. Have you forgotten Caesar and Brutus?”
In point of fact, Hayden had forgotten about the enormous, monstrous dogs. “Oh.”
“Exactly. You need me. Caesar and Brutus won’t hurt me.”
“There’s a great big difference between a mangy cat and two slavering, vicious dogs,” Hayden protested.
She met his eye, absolutely certain of herself. “Hayden. You saw me with the carriage house tom. You saw the ravens in town. Our own horses were deemed unbreakable before Fanny brought them to Quod Lamia. Believe in me, Hayden.
Trust me
.”
He already had, with his heart.
Chapter Thirty-six
Dawn was a pale thread on the horizon when they arrived at Bernard’s house. As Hayden had anticipated—he really was a genius—it stood dark and seemingly empty. But someone would eventually be by to feed Caesar and Brutus, if not Grammy Beadle, who had an unaccountable—and unrequited—fondness for the dogs, then someone else. They would have to work quickly.

 

All they wanted was one piece of evidence. The rifle would be nice. It would still hold the scent of its discharge. Barring that, perhaps there was something in his library or correspondence that gave a clue as to
why
he would want her dead. It still seemed unreal to her. Until a few days ago, she’d been weaving girlish daydreams around the handsome banker. Now he wanted her dead.
“There’s a lock around the chain here,” Hayden whispered from the gate.
“I have a key,” Amelie said. “Bernard has us on standing orders to save his stamp collection in case of a fire when he is away.”
She almost laughed. It sounded so absurd. Could dear, stodgy, stamp-collecting Bernard really want her dead? She unlocked the gate and slipped inside, Hayden at her heels.

 

“I will be watching those beasts like a hawk, Amelie. Should one of them so much as twitch wrong, promise me you’ll run out of the house,” he said commandingly.
“Yes, Hayden.”
“I mean it, Amelie. While I trust your belief in this . . . empathy you have with animals, I am not certain every living creature knows it has one with you.”
“They do,” Amelie returned confidently.

 

And then they were at the door, peering through the unshuttered windows into a long hallway devoid of furnishings or ornamentation. At the far end slunk the gargantuan black silhouettes, heads lowered and hackles raised. The dogs had already heard them.
“You were right. Bernard isn’t here,” she said excitedly, then explained, “Bernard doesn’t ever allow the dogs in the house when he’s home. I think he’s a little afraid of them.”
“Well, I bloody well would be,” Hayden murmured, his gaze riveted on the enormous beasts milling uncertainly at the end of the hall.
All she needed to do was shepherd the dogs into one of the smaller, unused rooms and shut them in. Then they could begin their search in earnest.

 

“Brutus! Caesar!” she called through the door. The dogs froze, Brutus, the larger, cocking his head toward her voice.
“That’s it, boy. It’s me, Amelie.” She turned the knob and the door slid noiselessly open.
“He doesn’t keep it locked?”
Amelie turned. “Bernard once told me that locks were more a psychological barrier than a real deterrent, and the dogs were both.”
“I see.”
“Wait here.” She slipped into the hallway, shutting the door behind her. “Brutus? Caesar. It’s me.”
The dogs still hadn’t moved. Caesar was audibly sniffing the air, and Amelie, despite herself, began to feel uneasy. A low rumbling issued from the dogs’ vicinity. They knew she was uneasy. That had to be it. She had to master her uncertainty; it was making them uncertain.
She straightened her shoulders and smiled. “There, now, lads. What is all this grumbling about?” she said softly as she walked toward them.

 

Brutus’s head lowered. Caesar’s lips curled back, and in the chancy light of predawn, she saw the gleam of wickedly sharp fangs appear.
“Come back here, Amelie,” she heard Hayden say.
“Now.”
He must have opened the door. No wonder the pair was reacting so aggressively.
“Shut the door,” she said, without taking her eyes off the dogs. They’d begun to prowl closer, the light catching their black eyes and lending them fire. “They’ll attack you.”
“Amelie.”
“Trust me.”
She heard the door click, and relief made her knees go weak. She expelled a long, slow breath, smiling tremulously. “There. He’s gone.” She took a step forward, holding out her hand. “Come on now. We’ll all go in the—”
One moment they were on the far end of the hall; the next they were bolting toward her, snapping and snarling, long ropes of saliva streaming from their open mouths, their nails clattering like a runaway train across the bare wood floor.
No!
They couldn’t be attacking. Not her! Animals loved—She stumbled around, amazed and horrified. Too late! Already, she could almost feel the damp heat of their breath. She flung up her arms to protect her face and was snatched out of the air and shoved aside.

 

She fell, sliding across the floor as she saw Hayden careen into the path of the dogs. He’d wrapped his jacket around his forearm, and Brutus’s jaws tangled in it. Caesar fishtailed in midair and fell heavily as he skittered wildly, trying to come to the aid of his companion.
“Get out!” Hayden roared, pummeling the dog with his free hand as it savaged his arm. “Amelie. Get—Ah!”
Brutus’s thrashing had torn through the cloth layers to Hayden’s flesh. With a crash Hayden fell to his knees, rolling as he clutched Brutus’s throat, holding the snapping maw bare inches from his face.
“Hayden!” she screamed. “Hayden!”
“Brutus! Caesar! Here!
Now
.”
At the whip-crack sound of the male voice, the two dogs froze. Brutus’s head wrenched around in Hayden’s grip and he whimpered, scrambling with his back legs to free himself. Caesar flung himself to his belly and crept into the shadows.

 

Bernard McGowan emerged from the stairwell, his face carved into lines of grave concern. He was carrying a bolt-action rifle.
“Good Lord,” he murmured, his eyes traveling to where Hayden sat, his back against the wall, the jacket in shreds around his bloodied arm. “Look at all that blood. Can’t have that. My house must be free of evidence. Which means I have some cleaning up to do.”
Hayden was breathing hard through his nostrils, his chest heaving up and down, his hair tousled, and his face glistening with sweat. Without thinking, Amelie ran to him and fell to her knees at his side. Hayden clasped her close with his good arm.
“Hayden, your arm!”
“It’s not as bad as it looks.” He gave her a wan smile. “Or at least, as I assume it looks.”
He shifted, grimacing as he tried to rise, but Bernard’s voice forestalled him.

 

“Please do not further complicate matters by making me shoot you.” Bernard pointed the rifle at them, illustrating his point.
Hayden turned a glowering gaze on their captor. “We thought you were gone.”
“As I should have been,” Bernard agreed mildly. “I should have been miles from here by now, but Miss Chase’s unfortunate clumsiness has delayed me. Although I blame myself for missing the second shot. I am clearly out of practice. And now I am in the unenviable position of having to improvise another plan.”
He sounded merely pettish, like a librarian who’d found tea spots on a book jacket. It terrified her. “Why are you doing this, Bernard?” she whispered. “I thought you cared for me. I thought we were friends.”
“I do. We were.” He sounded surprised. “But as Mrs. Walcott was so instrumental in pointing out, friendship was as far as our relationship would ever go. Even if this young man hadn’t come into your life. Unfortunately for you, a short time ago something else came into mine, too.”
“What is that?”
“A Two-Hump Yellow Wrong-Kneed Camel.”
Neither she nor Hayden could think of what to say to this.
“It’s a stamp,” Bernard said primly. “
The
stamp. The stamp that will complete my collection, the work of my life.”
“Aren’t you a mite young to have completed your life’s work?” Hayden asked with something of his uncle’s caustic irony.
“No.”
“When did this stamp show up?” Hayden asked. He was trying to buy them some time, Amelie realized.
“Months ago. That’s the way with stamps. First there’s a rumor, then a substantiated viewing. Then rumors of bids and counterbids . . . The proceedings can go on for months. Even years. I thought there would be plenty of time to woo Miss Chase, secure her guardian’s consent, and acquire the beauty.”
He was not speaking of her.

 

“But then . . . well, I am a realist. I saw the way things were going. So I began to make other plans,” he said.
“Happily, Miss Chase, you had already laid the groundwork for me, claiming two attempts on your life that would have been impossible for me to have made, since I was in New York City on one occasion and on a ship in the mid-Atlantic another.”
She’d forgotten her fear by now. She could not fathom how this man could be something so different from what she’d assumed. So cold. So calculating. But still just as pleasantly correct. “But how can my death benefit you, Bernard?” she asked.
“The Art Workers Guild,” he said patiently. “They’ll pay handsomely for the land Little Firkin sits on. It’s not as much as your inheritance would have been, but with a loan or two, it will suffice for me to buy the Two-Hump Yellow Wrong-Kneed Camel.”
“But you don’t own . . .” She began shaking her head in confusion, but then it all came suddenly clear. “If the residents default on their loans, you’ll own all their property.”
“Oh, they already have. Nine-tenths of Little Firkin lives on credit. Credit extended to them. Sometime after your death—not too soon, of course—I shall insist they repay their loans. Since they will not be able to, their houses, and the land they sit on, will become mine.”
“Why not demand they repay you now?” Hayden asked. Sweat beaded on his brow, but he still managed to sound reasonable, calm.
Bernard shrugged. “There are any number of people who would be willing to take over their debt on the merit of their future prospects. But with no future prospects, no one would be willing to extend them aid. And I own their land as collateral for their debts. Do you see now?”
“But that will take months.”
“The crockery chap has already offered to lend me a great deal of money in exchange for co-ownership of the mortgages I hold on the land here.” He smiled again, apologetically. “Now, then. Up you go, both of you.”
Amelie’s fear rushed back in. “What are you going to do with us? You can’t just kill us. People will be looking for us.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Bernard said. “Not at once. Especially since as soon as I leave here I will take the liberty of sending Lord Sheffield a wire, purporting to be you, Lord Hayden, telling him that the two of you have eloped.”
“He won’t believe it.”
“Oh, I think he will. After all, the poor devil is looking for any excuse to leave.”
“What do you mean? Why do you think he wants to leave?” Amelie asked, more to buy time than because she was interested in his answer. She knew why Lord Sheffield wanted to leave: He loathed her as a liar.
Bernard screwed up his face, studying her as though trying decide whether she was affecting ignorance or not. “Mrs. Walcott,” he finally said.
His answer caught her off guard. Sheffield might despise her, but why would he hate Fanny? “What about Fanny?”
“He can’t bear to be near her.”
“Why?”
“What?” Hayden said.

 

Bernard looked taken aback. “You mean you two really didn’t know? How could you not?” He shook his head ruefully. “Can there be a more self-involved creature than a young person in love?” He sighed.
“Lord Sheffield is in love with Mrs. Walcott,” he explained with exaggerated patience. “But his nature is fighting against his heart for precedence in the matter, and he will not allow his heart to win. Having recently experienced something of the same problem myself,” he said modestly, “I am most sympathetic to his plight. My heart, however, won out.”
He was talking about the stamp again. Comparing it to Sheffield’s love. Sheffield’s love? The world grew more surreal with each passing moment.
“Now,” he said, “we’ve chatted long enough. I’ve things to do, arrangements to make. Later, after night falls, we’ll all take a walk over to Quod Lamia and pay a visit to the handsome Mrs. Walcott. Until then, you’ll be my guests here.”
He was going to kill Fanny, too. Because Fanny would never accept that Amelie would leave her without saying something to her, nor would she believe Amelie’s death was accidental. Not after all that had transpired. Fanny, Hayden, everyone she loved was going to die because of her lies.
And a stamp.

 

She burst out laughing.
Bernard scowled. “Now, now. No hysterics,” he cautioned.
She lifted her chin. “I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction,” she said. “I was laughing at how ridiculous you are, killing people for a stamp.”
He nodded, his expression pained. “I quite agree,” he said. “Indeed, I have thought exactly the same thing myself. ‘This is ridiculous, Bernard! Have you lost your mind?’ But then I think of that blank spot between the red camel and the blue and it doesn’t seem to matter.” He shrugged. “Now, into that room.” He pointed the rifle into a small antechamber, which was unfurnished, like much of Bernard’s house.

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