The Heart Denied (32 page)

Grunting at the bitter metallic taste of the substance, he gathered a mouthful of saliva and spat. Twice more he purged thus, then firmly plugged the bottle.

He needed no chemist's analysis to know that it contained pure arsenic.

* * *

Darkness closed in rapidly on the forest and the rolling hills, mists forming in the dales. Behind Wycliffe Hall, the sprawling stone stables with their thick blanket of thatch stood as they did every evening, their dimly lit interior giving an impression both prohibitive and inviting.

Tobias Hobbs rounded the curve of the Northampton road and veered his mount into the rear lane, unaware that on this particular evening his humble abode harbored a creature far more malignant than those of the four-legged variety...one whose heart thudded with cold fury as it lay in wait for its quarry.

* * *

"'Tis a shame," Bridey mumbled, shaking her frizzled gray head. "He might just as well be back at university for all the life in this old Hall. Day in, day out, we all keep the place going--and for what, I ask ye?"

Arthur, eating a bowl of stewed beef and potatoes at the worktable, soaked up the broth with a hunk of day-old bread.

"Ye could have stopped him, if ye'd wanted," she grumbled. "Ye need only tell him the place is too much for a man of your years, and he'd high-tail it here directly, I vow."

The steward laid down his spoon with a sigh. "I'll not lie to him, Bridey. In your mind I might have one foot in the grave, but I can still manage this estate in the dead of winter. When lambing season is on us I'll ask him to come home."

"And worst of all," she lamented, as if he hadn't spoken, "he's to London where that black-eyed wench can get her hooks in him. Oh, don't look at me so, ye know full well I speak truth! She's had her eye on him since she first set foot in the Hall, even whilst he was betrothed to the mistress."

"Could be. But he's unattached now, and so's she. And she's damned fetching."

Bridey threw up her hands. "Men! Och, he'll tire of her though, they always do of women like that one--but will it be soon enough, I wonder."

Arthur slid off the stool, mouth twitching. "I'm off to the stables for a bit, then I'll be on my way home."

"Laugh if ye will," Bridey said grimly, "but ye'd best hope he don't make her the new baroness in a fit of fancy."

* * *

Having entered his quarters only to find his crude little hiding place gaping at him like an empty eye socket, Hobbs was momentarily immobilized; then, glancing quickly about, he knelt down, only to discover the pouch and its contents intact. He'd obviously surprised an intruder. But where was Nate?

He sucked in a breath as he noticed the vacant space beneath the pouch, and stared at it blankly.

"Something missing?"

The voice, directly behind him, chilled his blood. Instinctively he started to turn, but was immediately checked by the feel of cold hard steel just below his ear.

"Get up," came the deadly bidding. "Slowly, or I'll blow your buggering head off."

With the sinewy grace of a lion, Hobbs rose, muscles tensed and ready to spring as he prepared to undercut the outstretched arm behind him and knock the weapon away--until he heard the hammer cock, and recognized the sound of his own pistol.

"Don't!" he implored. "I'll not resist, but let me turn and see you."

He sensed his captor stepping slightly away; the icy metal was removed from his neck. "Now," he cautioned, "I'll come 'round, my hands up. I'm unarmed, by the by."

As there was no objection, he slowly turned...and looked into the face of hell.

"Were you on the battlements with her?"
The voice trembled with pent-up fury.
"Did you push her over?"

Horror replaced fear, and Hobbs felt the blood drain from his face. "Never," he rasped, when he finally managed a sound. "No...God, how could you even think...I would never-"

"
Sit
." Thorne indicated the cot with a jerk of his head.

He did so, the old resentment bringing the blood rushing back into his cheeks, while the pistol followed his movements, maintaining its deadly line of trajectory.

"Make yourself comfortable," he was ordered in a tone now as stony as it had been savage a moment ago. "You've a fair bit of explaining to do in front of this one-man firing squad, and you'd best do it fully...aye, 'tis loaded," Thorne added grimly, seeing his wary glance at the weapon. "And I've no qualms about
un
loading it--right into your heart. But not before you've told me just how my wife happened to be carrying a child when she died."

"So, you've forgotten your biology after all."

A slight shudder betrayed Thorne's tremendous effort to control his temper. "Insolence is not your friend at the moment, Hobbs, mark me. Now, spare us both the time and trouble of defending yourself, for the child wasn't mine by any stretch of the imagination, and you're the only other man with whom my wife spent time. What I
will
have from you are the circumstances...apparently the sword stayed
in
the scabbard this time."

Hobbs looked hard at the pistol, then at its wielder. "Let's just say your wife needed a man. A real man."

"You? A man who refused to claim the
last
child he'd sired?"

"A man who loved her."

"
And
her station in life. Had it not been for that, you'd have abandoned her just as you did the Combs woman. So much for your brand of love."

"'Twas a bloody sight better than that she got from you," Hobbs said with a sneer, all but certain by now that Thorne hadn't the nerve to pull the trigger. "I've noticed, too, that the Combs woman is never far from your thoughts...was it she who warmed your bed at night? Did it so well, in fact, that you kept her on in spite of her swelling belly, and hence found your wife's bed quite unnecessary? Aye," he said cunningly, noting the sudden the flare of Thorne's nostrils and the set of his jaw, "an eager little piece, Combs. I should know. 'Tis not often a woman begs to be broken."

* * *

Thorne's finger twitched on the trigger as he fought a desperate impulse to rend Hobbs from limb to limb and pound his head to a pulp on the hard oak floorboards. It was only the thought of Caroline and her grudging familial fondness that kept him from acting on primal instinct--that, and the fact that such a quick end would be too merciful. He wanted Hobbs to suffer. But first he must have the whole gut-wrenching story. He raised the pistol just a hair, a gentle reminder of its potential. "My wife didn't beg to be broken," he said tightly, "for she'd no more have tolerated your lovemaking than mine or anyone else's."

His prisoner looked down, and at that instant the bloodlust nearly overcame Thorne as he realized he'd surmised correctly: Gwynneth had not willingly surrendered her virginity. Her consequent shame, the quickening of her womb, and the magnitude of her terrible secret were undoubtedly enough to send her pell-mell over the battlements. At least now, after two long months of soul-searching, he could begin to understand what propelled her downward through the fog-thickened darkness in the wee hours of that Christmas morn. He could even begin to see, knowing Gwynneth's obsession for the saints, how she might have viewed her desperate act as martyrdom, a noble sacrifice to her God.

But he could not--
would not
--comprehend how this cur of a stableman, for even a fraction of a second, could have thought himself worthy to possess his master's wife.

Eyes narrowing, Thorne lowered the gun and fired.

The howl that came from Tobias Hobbs--one to put the hounds to shame--was quickly overlaid with Thorne's dry, guttural chuckle. He had deliberately sent the bullet whistling past the stable master's left ear. The newly chipped surface of the stone wall gleamed white in the light of the tallow.

"Now, you
God-damned cuckolder
. Tell me why you
ravished my wife
."

Hobbs had blanched. "She knew I loved her," he croaked, "yet she'd the gall to taunt me. Raked me over the bloody coals for bedding Caroline's...the Sutherland widow's maid, and threatened to have me sacked. She even bit me, and drew blood. But when she called me flea-infested vermin, and a liar, and said that I should never touch her again" --he shook his head-- "I couldn't abide that. Not after she had already let me embrace her, kiss her-"

"
Enough
." Longing to give Hobbs the unforgettable experience of choking on his own teeth, Thorne instead drew a deep breath and, with a keen eye on his hostage, began reloading the pistol. "So, we've established that you're capable of loving. Tell me, did you feel any of that noble sentiment for Henry Pitts?"

Hobbs averted his eyes. "Aye...he was like a son."

Thorne nodded, then with utter nonchalance took the box of cayenne pepper from a pocket in the lining of his waistcoat, and turned it over in his hands as if to study the stenciled name of the East India Spice Company. "To think," he murmured, "that the dried, crushed seeds and pods of the
Capsicum annum longum
...perfectly edible, albeit rather spicy...could serve" --he lifted brooding eyes to meet those of the stable master-- "as an instrument of death."

Hobbs sprang from his cot. "'Horseshite!" he cried. "What possible-"

"
Sit down
,"
came the laconic order once again.

Hobbs obeyed, mouth snapping shut as he glanced uneasily at the pistol.

"You're well aware that Kendall found naught wrong with the stallion that night," Thorne said. "Not so much as a pebble in his hoof or a bur in his tail, let alone anything that might cause him to trample a boy to death." He pulled the lone chair away from its little table, flipped his waistcoat hem and took a seat, the pistol casually but nonetheless directly pointed at his captive. "But, you see, by the time the good veterinarian arrived, the heat of the capsicum in Raven's mouth and throat had run its course--helped along, no doubt, by a draught of cool water from his keeper."

The amber eyes were suddenly hooded. "Why the devil would anyone put pepper in a horse's mouth?"

"To...drive...him...mad,"
Thorne said, each word lashing the air. "Mad as a March hare'--those were Pennington's very words. Mad enough to rear at the first person who dared confront him, namely poor Henry. And where were you at the time, Hobbs? Not in London, I'll wager my life! 'Tis my guess you'd left the stall gate conveniently unlatched, and were but a few yards away...so how did it feel to watch while a mere boy perished at your hands? A boy you'd rescued from the gutter and taken in as if he were your own...what kind of guardian from hell does that make you, Hobbs? By God, you shed tears enough at his burial to convince even
me
of your innocence, you bloody whoreson-"

He broke off, lunging so swiftly that the stable master hadn't a moment to react before he was yanked to his feet by the fist-twisted front of his shirt. Nose to nose, the two men panted like wolves, the one with seething, savage anger, the other with primordial fear.

* * *

I have seen murder in his eyes...as will you
.

No longer was Hobbs skeptical of Gwynneth's prediction--there
was
murder in the molten blue orbs, and the fact that the barrel of his own pistol was pressed hard against his left temple only underscored the folly of any such doubt.

"You killed an innocent boy," Thorne snarled, hammering his shirt-clutching fist against Hobbs' sternum for emphasis. "Cut him down in cold blood...and why? Merely because he'd overheard a quarrel between you and your sister, the one and only Caroline Sutherland! Aye, and what of it? For her secret and your greed you deemed
murder
necessary?" The twisted knot of homespun shirt was jerked upward once more; as the stable master emitted a gag, he was given a vigorous shake. "The boy worshipped you, Hobbs! He'd have kept your counsel at all costs, had you but asked. So that won't do, you buggering cur...I'll need a better reason!"

With that, Hobbs was let go with a shove that sent him sprawling into the stone wall and rebounding flat out on the cot. For dizzying seconds he lay still but for his heaving diaphragm, his ragged breathing merging with Thorne's and creating a strange, harsh synchronization that struck him as ironically appropriate in light of their secret fraternal bond. He opened hot, dry eyes to find his world was no longer spinning...and that the pistol hanging loosely at Thorne's side seemed to have been forgotten.

"'Twas not the whole of it," he muttered. 'Twas not
all
the boy overheard."

"I'll wager it wasn't. 'Twas not all he saw, either!"

Hobbs cautiously levered himself upright on the cot. Disappointed to see Thorne's hand tighten on the pistol, he said sullenly, "He didn't see anything."

"He saw this."

The apothecary jar was tossed into the air; by reflex Hobbs caught it. He stared at the familiar glass vessel, his heart rising in his gullet. He'd nearly forgotten it was missing.

Oddly, Thorne was smiling. On second thought, it was more a grimace--the kind of look many a dead man must have seen just before the trigger was pulled. Hobbs tensed, ready to dive for the floor--or the door.

"Don't try telling me 'twas for rats. The mousers in these stables are just a meal or two away from starving."

Hobbs held his tongue.

"Henry discovered your little cache, did he not?"

Hobbs glanced at the cavity in the floor. "He'd seen me uncover it, and though I warned him, he couldn't resist a look. I caught him."

"Looking, not stealing."

"Aye."

"But, as his was a rather gregarious nature, you feared he might not keep the contents confidential."

"He was inclined to blab to Carmody's boy."

Thorne smiled grimly. "Yes, I've had the pleasure of talking with the lad myself." Once more the hammer was cocked, and any trace of a smile was gone. "You killed an innocent boy as if he were naught more than a rodent that had gotten into the feed...but a rodent would have died much more humanely." He narrowed his eyes. "So help me God, Hobbs, if I could force you under my horse's hooves, I'd do it...and I'd
revel
in watching the black blood spurt from your nose and mouth, just the way it did from poor Henry's."

"Stop it!" For a moment Hobbs feared he'd be sick, but decided he'd choke on his own vomit before giving Thorne the satisfaction. "You don't understand. I'd a true affection for the boy, but he'd heard things...things that compromised my situation, my very life, as it could be...things," he added, glowering at Thorne, "that I dared not allow beyond these walls."

He saw by the look on Thorne's face that it made no difference what the boy had overheard: he, Hobbs, was a condemned man. Hands in the air, he shifted toward the cot's edge and stood slowly and carefully on his wobbling legs, determined that if his life was to end here and now, he would at least be on his feet when that end came.

"
Nothing
," Thorne said in a voice as deadly as his gaze, "that either you or she might have said could possibly justify that boy's
cold-blooded murder
."

Hobbs swayed on his feet. He squeezed his eyes shut the instant he saw the flash.

The lead ball whizzed horribly close to his cheek and struck the wall behind him again, its ricochet blessedly missing him as well. His breath exploded from his lungs in a fearful moan as he struggled to control his bladder.

"There's but one grievance remaining to be settled," Thorne said coldly, already reloading with frightening efficiency. "I
will
have your reasons for poisoning my livestock, before I fire this weapon the third time--by the by, you'll not be spared
that
shot, though I might only maim you. Painfully," he added with obvious relish. "And although instinct bids me hie your black heart to hell, reason says I should see you hanged in public for your crimes against me and mine." His teeth gleamed in a malevolent grin. "The magistrate in Northampton is known to have a strange predilection for the rope. Speak, Hobbs." The grin disappeared. "I'm your lone tribunal, and you'll answer to me or suffer all the more. Tell me whence, how, and especially
why
you procured this arsenic. Don't trouble yourself to invent, for I'll know it as surely as I know you...and I'm in no mood for fantasy." As if to prove it, the hammer was cocked yet again.

"I got it from Horace Sutherland," Hobbs grumbled. "I chanced to see him entering an opium den in Whitechapel with some of Whittingham's bloody henchmen, and he was quick to pay me however I liked for my silence. He wanted to protect Caroline from scandal, and to preserve her respect for him. You see, he loved
her
, not only her sexual favors, as
some
men are wont to do."

"Don't preach to me," Thorne warned. "My dealings with your sister have naught to do with you. And you're a good one to talk about a man taking advantage of a woman. To the subject at hand, then. You're not one to do his own dirty work, so tell me who it was you bullied or bribed to skulk about my pastures in the dead of night."

Hobbs licked his lips nervously as Thorne tightened his grip on the haft of the pistol.

"Give it up, Hobbs, 'tis not worth a hole in your head."

Mumbling, the stable master averted his eyes.

"Louder."

"I said, 'Barker'. Tom Barker."

A weighty silence ensued; then Thorne said softly, "And old Tom is no longer among the living."

There was no reply.

"If the dead could only speak."

Hobbs pursed his lips.

"God knows Tom spoke often and loudly enough in
this
world," Thorne mused. "I imagine he and little Henry had some commiserating to do when they met in the next. Likely they'll have some business with you, Hobbs...before you're consigned to warmer regions."

Still Hobbs kept mute. As he saw it, he'd said more than enough.

"Very well, then, keep your counsel on that score. But you'd best loosen your tongue on the next, for it concerns me directly. Why did you poison those poor dumb animals, and why just as I was due home? What the devil was your quarrel with me?"

There was a faint swishing sound from the shadowy passageway. Thorne merely cocked an ear, but Hobbs whipped his head about to stare.

"Tell him, Toby." Breathless, disheveled, and ruddy-cheeked from the cold, Caroline stepped into the room behind Thorne. "If you don't,
I bloody well will
."

* * *

"Stay where you are, Caroline," Thorne said without turning around, "or your brother's gray matter will be splattered over us and the four walls. You've no business here. Just how the devil are you so close upon my heels tonight, have you wings?" When there was no sound, he had second thoughts. "Move over here where I can see you, damn it."

Hastily Caroline took up a stance between the two men.

"Stand aside," Thorne said sharply. "He doesn't need your protection."

"Apparently he does," she countered, nevertheless following orders. "You, sir," she said as she passed him, her brow delicately arched, "are brandishing a pistol.
He
has no weapon."

Thorne spared her a mocking glance. "Aye. If he had, I'd be lying dead at your feet." He nodded toward Hobbs. "Your brother is not nearly as self-controlled as I. My late wife could have attested to that."

Caroline inclined her head. "Yes, he told me just today. I am mortified for him and heartily sorry for you. You are indeed benevolent, I venture some men would have drawn and quartered him by now. But Thorne, there is a tale yet untold, and before you decide Toby's fate, you must hear it. For me," she pleaded, as he dragged his eyes off Hobbs and looked reluctantly at her. "For me, and for what there is between us."

"Don't beg, Caroline!" Hobbs' lip curled. "And for God's sake, don't bargain your favors, not with him. He only amuses himself with you. Saves him the pocket change he'd be obliged to spend on his whore."

"Hush!" Caroline hissed, turning on him. "Do you not realize, Tobias Hobbs, how very close you are to the grave at this moment? For once in your ill-spent life,
keep your bloody mouth shut
!" She turned back to Thorne, her expression softening. "Please. For me. Listen to him, if only for a few minutes...for the tale concerns you as well, Thorne." She started toward him, her hand out in supplication, but he warned her off with a mere look.

"I'll listen," he said curtly, "for as long as it amuses me. But the instant your tale ceases to hold my interest, Hobbs, I'll pierce your sorry hide with lead. Sit down, Caroline."