The Marsh Hawk (40 page)

Simon was exhausted, mentally and physically, and he'd nearly fallen asleep in the bath when frantic knocking at the dressing room door sent him scrambling to answer. Tugging on his pantaloons, he hopped to the door and flung it wide.

“Fire, my lord!” cried the breathless footman on his doorstep, waving his arms wildly toward the chamber where Biggin's had been incarcerated across the hall. Smoke was pluming out beneath the doorsill.

Barking a string of expletives, Simon snatched his key chatelaine from the drop-leaf table, and unlocked the smoldering chamber door. The Runner's shrill voice rushed at him as he flung it wide, releasing a billowing cloud of thick black smoke and a burst of flame-fed heat. He could scarcely see. Beating the smoky fog away with flailing arms, he staggered into the room coughing, his stinging eyes flooded with tears. Half-shuttered, they strained through the murky atmosphere for Biggins as he groped his way toward the bed where the man was chained.

The fire seemed confined to the immediate area of the bed. A quick assessment was all Simon needed to evaluate the situation. It appeared that, in an attempt to liberate himself, the Runner had knocked over the candle stand, igniting the bed-clothes and draperies. The fire had come precariously close to the Runner's person, now. His hysterical shrieks rose above the cries of the servants who had come running with buckets of water and sand, dousing everything in sight with both, with little regard to the Runner in the midst of the spreading blaze.

Simon unlocked the manacles that pinioned Biggins to the bedpost—and for his pains took a blow to the head with the loosened chains and dangling bars that brought him to his knees, momentarily stunned. Groping his way up to his full height, he shook his head like a dog in a desperate attempt to clear his vision, blurred by smoke and the blow. Was that blood running down his face? He shook his head again and wiped it from his eyes, loosing another string of profanity as he staggered after the Runner, who was disappearing toward the door in the voluminous curtain of smoke.

Simon's head was throbbing. He reeled into the corridor, colliding with two footmen who doused him with the water they were carrying, spilling more over the parquetry underfoot. He was hard put to keep his balance, slipping on the puddles that had collected on the smooth waxed surface, but he crossed the corridor and burst through the master bedchamber door. There was a brace of loaded dueling pistols in the top drawer of his chifforobe. He snatched them up and followed after the Runner, who had reached the landing and was set to escape down the staircase in the confusion, still trailing clanking irons.

“Stand where you are!” Simon commanded.

But the Runner continued to flee.

“
Stop
, I say!” Simon shouted.

When the Runner still did not comply, Simon fired a warning shot over his head that hit a bronze wall sconce and ricocheted off the chandelier suspended above the landing, shattering prisms and candles over the steps below. Biggins froze where he stood, glancing back at the smoking pistol in Simon's hand.

“Not another step, or the next time I won't miss,” Simon warned, moving nearer.

No one above was paying any attention. The servants that swarmed steadily up the back stairs from the servants' quarters, toting buckets and kettles of water, were far too occupied with the fire. Where the deuce was Phelps? It wasn't like him not to leave word of his whereabouts. Simon could certainly use him now, to back him up from below. But there was no sign of the valet, or any other to come to his aid.

The lame leg was a hindrance on the narrow staircase with wet feet, and he approached the Runner gingerly. Biggins stood motionless until Simon was almost upon him, and then swung the length of chain-trailing manacles at him again. Simon ducked, and it struck him in the shoulder this time, but the impact threw him off balance, between the dizziness, the blood in his eyes, and the stiff injured knee. The shackles glanced off Simon's hand on the downswing, and his other pistol discharged at close range. For a suspended moment, Biggins froze on the step before his hand gripped his chest and he fell backward, head over heels down the staircase in a cartwheel. He tumbled all the way to the bottom.

Simon staggered down the stairs and squatted over the Runner's inert, twisted body, his eyes flung wide to the shuddering chandelier above. Whether the pistol shot had killed him, or the fall, was irrelevant. The Runner was dead.

“
Bloody hell
!” Simon roared. He set the dueling pistols down on the step, and slumped beside the corpse. There went his hope of liberating Jenna; Biggins wasn't going to be of any use to him now. And he crouched there numb over the Runner's corpse with his bleeding head in his hands until a shadow fell across him through the drifting haze of smoke ghosting down the spiral stairwell from above.

Ridgeway.

“I knew I never should have left you alone with the blighter,” he said. “Good God, Simon, what have you done?”

“Nothing that didn't want doing,” Simon said with a dangerous tremor. “But, believe it or not, it wasn't deliberate. I gave him fair warning. The maw-worm set fire to the place, Nate—deliberately set off the bedclothes in the four-poster I'd chained him to upstairs. It was a setup, and I played right into his hands. I was turning him loose when he gave me
this
.” He gestured to his gashed forehead, still oozing blood.

“That needs a surgeon, Simon.”

“It'll mend without that. I needn't tell you I've had worse,” he responded, waving the man off with a hand gesture. “To make short of it, he got away from me. I grabbed my pistols and went after him. At first he kept running despite my warning, then he stopped and let me get close enough to swing those damned chains again. In the process, the shackles hit my hand. The pistol went off, and the bounder toppled over backward and tumbled all the way to the bottom. His neck is broken. I don't know if the pistol ball killed him or the fall. I certainly wasn't aiming.”

Ridgeway crouched down and went through the useless motions of feeling for a pulse in the Runner's throat.

“He's dead all right,” he said, surging to his feet.

Simon eased himself onto the bottom step, and dropped his head in his hands.

“Did anyone see? Were there . . . witnesses, any of the staff?” the lieutenant probed. “Where's Phelps?”

“No,” Simon replied. “The servants were all occupied putting out the damned fire. I assume they've succeeded, since the place hasn't gone up in flames around me. I haven't seen any of them since I took off after Biggins here, and God alone knows where Phelps has got to. Nobody's seen him.”

“You're going to have to have the bailiffs. The man is dead, and he's a Runner, Simon. That isn't going to bode well.”

“Doesn't matter anymore. I've . . . failed her.”

“No, you haven't,” Ridgeway said softly, tapping him on the shoulder with a pistol barrel. “Would this be the proof you're after?”

Simon's head snapped toward the gun, and he vaulted to his feet, snatching it in trembling hands.

“W-where did you find it?” he murmured, running his fingers along the barrel and stock. They paused over the notches and initials carved there, and he gasped.

“At Moorhaven Manor,” said Ridgeway. “You were right on about old Wilby. Marner sent it back with him for safekeeping after he paid the Runner for it.”

“H-how did you ever . . . ?”

“Let's just say I was creative, and leave it at that, shall we? I've brought Wilby along just in case there's any doubt. He'll not be much use to you yet awhile, though—not till he comes to.”

“Nate, I don't know how I shall ever thank you,” Simon groaned. “I'll take the pistol 'round to Serjeant's straightaway, and send for Wilby if he's needed.”

“Hold there, ship oars!” Ridgeway called, arresting him with a quick hand. “What about him?” he said, nodding toward the corpse at their feet.

“I hate to ask, old boy, but can you have a surgeon and the bailiffs in and deal with this till I return? He isn't going anywhere, but Jenna is if I don't get to her with this in time.” He brandished the pistol. “Straight to Tyburn.”

An hour later, Simon was pacing in the courtyard at Newgate Gaol when a bailiff ushered Jenna through the great doors. The instant their eyes met, she called his name, and he streaked up the stone steps past the man and took her into his arms. Clasping her to him, he groaned, and her heart nearly burst with joy to be in those arms again.

“Simon . . . what's happened to you—to your head?”

“It's nothing. You're free. That's all that matters.”

“Can you ever forgive me?” she moaned, clinging to him as he helped her down the roughly hewn stairs. “I've been such a fool.”

“Shhh,” he soothed, crushing her closer. “There is nothing to forgive, and I am the fool, not you. I don't care who you confide in.” He pointed to a dusky figure perched on the roof. “Confess to that chimney sweep up there if the mood strikes you,” he said, gesturing toward the man plying his trade aloft. “I nearly lost you!” He held her away and took her measure. She was still wearing the highwayman costume, and he frowned. “Where are the things I sent from the Hall—didn't Phelps deliver them?”

“What things?”

“I had him pack a portmanteau for you, and instructed him to deliver it to the gaol. He didn't?”

“No . . . no one came.”

“No one at the town house has seen him, either. Something must have happened to him,” he said, helping her into the waiting coach. “One more thing for Ridgeway to deal with.”

“Ridgeway?” she said, nonplussed.

“I'm sorry, my love; so much has occurred since that deuced ball. I'll catch you up, but first you need tending.” He ran his hand lightly along her shoulder to her wound, crudely doctored and bound. “Butchers,” he snarled, pulling her close in the custody of his arm, meanwhile rapping on the carriage roof with his walking stick to signal the driver to move on. The coach sped off through the cobblestone streets toward Hanover Square.

“Simon, you're trembling,” she murmured. He had such a tight hold on her that she could scarcely breathe, and his whole body was shaking.

“I passed the pardon through the aperture in that blasted door nearly an hour ago,” he murmured. “When you didn't come out straightaway, I thought . . . Never mind what I thought.”

Her lips silenced anything else he might have said. She melted against him, and they clung to each other in total abandon as the carriage tooled through the streets. His hands roamed her body through her black highwayman's garb like those of a starving man turned loose at a banquet, just as they had when he'd held her in the dock. Even now, his embrace shot waves of drenching fire through her loins. She hadn't slept in days—really slept; she hadn't dared, with so many mad and ruthless creatures cast about her. That terror hadn't left her yet; neither had the stench, nor the melancholy hopelessness that permeated the very walls of Newgate Gaol. And yet, Simon aroused her. Had she heard him correctly? Had he really forgiven her for . . . ? She couldn't even remember what had ever separated them.

During the short drive to the Square, in between the kisses he lavished upon her, taking her breath away—kisses full of longing and promise and passion—he told her about the duel, about Robert Nast's injury, about Ridgeway and his desperate attempt to find the pistol that finally set her free. Then, to her horror, he told her about the Runner lying dead at the town house.

When they reached Hanover Square, Simon lifted her down from the coach, swept her up in his arms, and carried her over the threshold, only to pull up short. Three bailiffs, a surgeon, a representative from Bow Street, and Ridgeway were engaged in a heated discussion. Simon put Jenna down and limped nearer the confrontation, only to be seized by two of the bailiffs, who disarmed him.

“What the deuce is going on here?” he thundered. “Take your hands off me! Don't you know who I am?”

“We know who you are, my lord,” said the Runner. “Don't look to your title to save you.”

“I'm sorry, Simon,” Ridgeway put in. “There was nothing I could do.”

“Are these your pistols, my lord?” the Runner barked, pointing to the dueling pistols Simon had left on the step earlier.

“They are,” Simon snapped.

“And you gunned down Biggins here with this one, did you?” the Runner returned, exhibiting the weapon in question.

“Hardly,” Simon retorted. “I gave him fair warning. He set my house afire, and was trying to escape before you found him out a renegade. I fired a warning shot over his head, and moved to restrain him when he struck me with the manacles, and my pistol discharged. He fell over backward. He was dead at the bottom of the stairs when I reached him. I think his bloody neck was broken.”

“What say you, Dr. Smythe?” the Runner inquired of the surgeon.

“I'd be hard put to say for certain which injury did him in,” the man observed. “'Twas a mortal wound, but so was the fall fatal—but one is related to the other after all, so I expect which came first is a moot point, actually.”

“Why is the deceased shackled, my lord?” the Runner inquired.

“Because he had knowledge that the pistol you took from me when I came in was the proof that would free the countess,” Simon explained. “He and Rupert Marner were responsible for its disappearance from the scene of a crime that saw her ladyship wrongly accused. The Earl of Stenshire here just retrieved it from Marner's groom, who was privy to the transaction. He's brought the man along as witness—”

“Where is he, then?”

“Indisposed at the moment,” Ridgeway said. “But he'll be fit enough in due course.”

“I still don't see—”

“This has just come to light,” Simon interrupted. “When Biggins refused to tell the truth about the evidence, I decided to have him before the bench as living proof instead—hence the manacles and this whole unfortunate situation.”