The Sinner (29 page)

She cupped his face in her good hand and stroked his cheek. His color still had not completely returned, but his eyes danced with warmth and life.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Shhh. It is I that am sorry, Cat. I don't know what I was thinking. I know in my heart you wouldn't hurt me, but I refused to listen to it." He pressed his forehead to hers. "Your maid said you gave her the wine to give to me, but it must have been a trick."

"Slade," Cat said. "He must have given it to her and told her it came from me. The poor girl will feel terrible when she finds out."

"You didn't tell him about the will, did you?"

"No. Why?"

He sighed. "He must have guessed I would change it to favor you, and used the knowledge to convince me of your guilt. I was too sick and confused from the poison to think clearly. Ah, Cat. I should have told you the truth from the beginning and none of this would have happened."

"And I should have trusted that you did what was right." She swallowed. "If you found evidence that Stephen had committed those crimes then I believe you."

He winced and dragged his hand over his face. "On that score, we perhaps differ."

She pulled away and blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

"It means I fear I may have killed an innocent man." He looked pale again and he swayed a little. He suddenly let her go and squatted on the ground. He buried his head in his hands. Cat looked to his friend. Cole stood near Hislop’s lifeless body and gave her a grim look in return, as if he had expected this to happen.

She crouched before Hughe and clasped his face. She kissed his forehead and made him look her in the eye. "Don't blame yourself, Hughe."

"You said it yourself. He was a good man. I was tricked into believing otherwise, but it doesn't make it right. I should have checked the facts."

"You did."

"I should have kept checking." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Christ, I killed an innocent. How many others?"

"Don't," she said. "It's not your fault."

"How can it not be my fault? I gave the orders. I organized everything. Hell." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I can't do this anymore."

She shook her head. How to make him see? Did she even
want
him to see that he did important work? He would be gone from her for weeks at a time, putting his own life at risk. Yet she loved him and could not bear to see him shattered like this.

"You can," she said. "You have to. Think of the people like the Rennys, who would be in grave danger if not for you."

"I exposed them to that danger in the first place."

"You
saved
them. You saved the Larkham people, and countless others, who will never know you saved them. Your work is important." She stood and held out her hand. "Come, Hughe. We must speak to Slade. He is behind all of this. He poisoned you. He wanted me to spy on you. I believe he paid you to kill Stephen so he could inherit. It's likely he encouraged Stephen to murder that man because he knew you would require irrefutable proof of a crime before carrying out the assassination."

It made sense. The more she talked, the more likely it seemed that Slade had set Stephen up to murder Crabb. She doubted whether Stephen had raped Mrs. Crabb, but the cuckolded husband perhaps believed he did, thanks to Slade.

He took her hand and stood. "Hislop is involved too." He nodded at the body still lying in the dirt. "He saw Slade as a weak man he could control, someone who could help him rise. It wouldn't surprise me if Hislop encouraged Slade all along, even suggesting he hire me to do his dirty work and keep his own hands clean."

It lifted her to see Hughe fight for what he believed in, against cruelty and injustice. As dangerous as his work was, she had to stand by him now, when he needed her most.

He clasped her hand in his own and looked to Cole as he strapped Hislop's body to his horse. "I told you to go with Orlando and see the Rennys to safety," he growled.

"Shut it," Cole said with the hint of humor in his voice. "I don't work for you anymore. If I want to come and save your hide, I will. Orlando didn't need me."

Hughe swallowed heavily. Then he held out his hand and Cole clasped his arm. The glance they exchanged was filled with a respect and depth that Cat had never seen before.

"You look like death," Cole said. "You must get back to the house."

Hughe did indeed still look ill, his color as pale as his eyes.

They mounted and set off.

"Think I better have a bath before I return home," Cole said as he rode at the front. "Lucy will scold me if she sees all this blood."

Cat smiled at the ridiculous image of little Lucy berating her big brute of a husband.

They rode back to Sutton Hall. Cole took all the horses around to the stables, while Cat and Hughe made their way to the house.

Hughe held his wife's small hand in his own as they crossed the courtyard and thanked God for the hundredth time that she was alive and unharmed. He'd been so sick with fear and the remains of the poison and could hardly think straight. If he had been thinking, he would have made sure she left the scene with the mob immediately and not been there as a target for Hislop to attack.

But his brave little Cat was back in his arms where she belonged. He didn't care how sick he was, he was going to worship her and love her for the rest of his days.

Love. Well. It seemed he loved his wife. Tonight, he was going to show her just how much.

"My lord!" cried Lynden, running across the courtyard to them. His soft shoes hardly made a sound on the stones. "My lord Oxley! I've been so worried about you." He grasped Hughe in an embrace that drew Hughe away from Cat.

He heard her chuckling and he smiled. He set Lynden at arm's length and spied Elizabeth approaching, her face drawn.

"You're back," she said to Hughe, hands on hips. "You should not have gone. Look at you! You're so pale and— Whose blood is that?"

"I'll explain later."

"Is everyone safe? Cat?"

"I'm fine," Cat said.

"Where's Slade?" Hughe asked, scanning the long gallery walkway above.

Elizabeth glanced past his shoulder. "He's right there. Why?"

Even as she said it, he heard Cat gasp. Hughe turned, his gut churning again. What he saw made him want to throw up.

Slade had his arm around Cat's waist and a knife at her throat. He dragged her away. Her feet scrabbled for purchase and her hands clawed at his sleeve, but it was no use. Slade was too strong.

"No! NO!" Hughe roared.
Give her back to me. Give back my Cat.

"I'll kill her," Slade snarled. He swung around as Cole entered the courtyard from the direction of the stables. "Get over there with the others."

Cole did as he was told, his face grave. Slade continued to back away with Cat.

"What's this?" Lynden asked. "I don't understand. Lord Slade, what's going on?"

"Shut it, fool. This doesn't concern you."

Lynden fisted his hands on his hips. "It does indeed! This is my house! The Oxleys are my guests. Unhand Lady Oxley this instant!"

A line of blood appeared at Cat's throat near the blade. She winced. "Quiet," Hughe snapped at Lynden. If he had to shut the fool up himself, he'd do it with his fist.

"Forget this," Slade told them, his eyes darting between them. "Forget all of this and let me go."

"Let you go?" Lynden snorted. "I think not."

Cole's hand flashed out and grabbed Hughe's wrist before he could punch Lynden into silence. "It won't help."

Cole was right. Hughe's first priority was getting Cat away. Sweat beaded across Slade's forehead and his eyes shifted back and forth. He looked like a trapped animal.

Hughe took a slow, careful step forward. Slade didn't respond so he took another.

"Stay back!" Slade shouted. "If I die, I take her with me."

"You harm my wife and I will gut you, slowly and painfully." Hughe's stomach rolled again. He swallowed bile. 

Cat remained stoic, but he saw pain ripple across her face as Slade pressed the knife harder against her throat. Christ. He had to get her away. Slade was capable of anything.

He took another step, so slowly and so small that it would hardly have been noticeable. He did that several times until Slade shouted at him to stop once more.

"Let me go!" he screamed, his voice high. Stringy black hair fell across his wild eyes. "It wasn't me! It was Hislop! It was all his idea.
He
told Crabb that Stephen had forced himself upon Mistress Crabb. Then it was
he
who whispered in my brother's ear, urging him to murder Crabb before Crabb murdered him. Then he helped cover it up. Hislop wanted me to inherit, see. He told me I was the better baron and he was right! I am. Stephen was
useless
. Cat knows, don't you? Tell them."

He glanced down at her and Hughe took the brief moment to step forward again. But not far enough. He was still five or so feet away.

Cat closed her eyes, and Hughe knew it was so he couldn't see the pain in them. She didn't want him to know that the blade bit into her soft skin, but he could see it from the blood trickling down her throat and staining her ruff.

Hughe had to act now.

"Diversion," he whispered to Cole, right behind him.

Without a word of acknowledgement, his friend called out, "Warren! Careful, lad!"

Slade turned around in the direction of the stables. And Hughe wasted not a moment. He drew his knife from his boot and lunged. Slade turned back after seeing no one behind him, but by then it was too late; Hughe had sunk the blade into Slade's side and grabbed the hand that clutched the knife, staying it.

Cat slipped down and away, out of danger. Hughe gripped both of Slade's arms and forced him to his knees onto the stones. It wasn't difficult. The man's life drifted away as the blood drained from his side and his body finally crumpled in a heap. Dead.

Hughe fell to one knee, partly out of exhaustion, but mostly from relief. A pair of light, supple arms circled his shoulders and he was drawn against Cat's breast. He closed his eyes and held her against him. She was alive, safe, and she was all his.

He held her as she cried, and continued to hold her as Slade's body was removed and his blood washed away. He didn't want to let her go. Couldn't.

"Hughe," she finally murmured. "Hughe, you should be in bed. You're unwell."

He parted from her, just enough so he could look her in the eyes. "I am well as long as I have you with me, Cat." He stroked his thumbs over her face, wiping away her tears, and gently down to the wound at her throat. It didn't look too deep. "You are my heart, my soul, my
whole
. I love you, my sweet little Cat. I love you forever and always."

Her lip wobbled and she began to cry all over again. "I love you too, Hughe."

She kissed him. Thoroughly. Completely. He felt like he was drowning in her and he didn't care. This was what happiness was, a wholeness that filled him up to bursting. It was desire in its rawest form, but it was more than that. It was wanting to be with another so much that it hurt to be apart. It was not being able to imagine your life without them in it. It was a kind of madness, and yet brought peace too, and a certainty that the world was balanced, right.

"I will protect you always, but only with the truth," he murmured against her lips. "And the truth is that I will never let you go, Cat. You and I will be together in this life and the next."

EPILOGUE

Cat leaned back against the solid wall of her husband's chest and gazed upon the Hampshire countryside as the setting sun bathed it in the golden tones of late summer. It wasn't Oxley countryside, but she felt a sense of rightness nevertheless. Perhaps it was because so much had happened to them in the valley, or it might have been because their good friends sat with them on the Sutton Hall garden seats, equally contemplative. Or perhaps it was simply because Cat felt safe, enveloped as she was in her husband's powerful arms. She knew without needing to hear him say it, that those arms, this man, would never let her go.

Baby George gurgled in his father's lap, transfixed by his own fist waving in front of his face. Cole placed his hand over his wife's belly and she smiled up at him. She had announced a few days earlier that she suspected she was carrying.

"How do you feel, Hughe?" Susanna asked.

"Better," came the rumbling answer at Cat's back. "Widow Dawson thinks the poison has left my system entirely."

"Finally," Cat said on a breath. Hughe had been sent back to bed for a week by the wise woman after Slade's death. A week was a long time for an active man. He was up and giving orders again by the second day, until Cat scolded him. To keep him quiet, she sat him down and together they made plans for the future.

"So, what's next?" Cole asked, twirling a lock of his wife's hair around his massive finger. "Do you have your next target?"

"Not yet," Hughe said.

Monk kissed his wife's cheek. "I wish to stay home awhile, to settle into Oxley Gatehouse."

"Not forever," Elizabeth said. "Cat and I cannot constantly have you two under our feet."

Cat rather liked the idea of having her husband near, but she knew he'd grow mad with boredom after a few weeks.

Hughe chuckled and kissed her temple. "I cannot promise a less dramatic life than the one we've lead thus far, but I do promise to be more careful."

Cat knew he was talking about thoroughly checking on the person who commissioned him, not just the target, but she didn't say so. Hughe still felt horrid that he'd been duped into assassinating Stephen by Slade. He had told her that he also regretted not making sure she received the money he'd left for her. She reminded him that it didn't matter. If anything had been different, they may never have met and she regretted none of it; she had even come to terms with his marrying her out of guilt. No matter what his original motives had been, she knew he now loved her as deeply as she loved him. 

"You would wither on the vine if you had less drama in your life," Orlando teased Hughe.