“And Rohan’s bedchamber is just through that adjoining door,” he said, waving the gun toward the door. “I wonder if that door ever closes. I also wonder how you tricked him. All his experience with whores and sluts, and yet you netted him. You’re not even beautiful. You’re quite ordinary really, except for those breasts of yours. He appears to admire you. I don’t understand it. It seems he wants to protect you. Oh, yes, I saw all those men he’d set about guarding the house and patrolling the grounds.”
What men? Then she realized that Rohan was indeed trying to protect her, to protect all of them. He’d been worried after they were attacked, she’d known that. She’d been worried too. Why hadn’t he told her what he’d done?
“Yes,” she said simply. “How did you get past them?”
“I know my way in here,” he said. “If Rohan were really as smart as he believes he is, he would have suspected me enough to set a guard against that small gate nearly hidden now by all the shrubbery just behind the apple orchard. My superior brother must have forgotten about it and the entrance into Mountvale from there that lets into the chamber just off the library. How do you think I got in here that very first night he brought all of you here?”
She stared at him, her memory righting itself. Marianne had said the man looked like Rohan, but none of them had taken her seriously. She could only shake her head. “It was you, not Lambie Lambert.”
“Oh, yes. Lambie saw the lot of you in Oxford and rode immediately to tell me. I sent him to kidnap you. But he couldn’t even manage to do that properly, the half-wit. What did you do, try to seduce him? Always weak of the flesh, was Lambie.”
“No, I tried to kill him, but failed. Rohan saved me.”
“Then you simpered and fainted and you trapped him. My proud, licentious brother, shackled to the likes of you. Now, enough of this. Give me the map and key.”
She had to know, she just had to. “There were small letters etched onto the golden key. We couldn’t make out what they were. Do you know?”
That startled him. He stared at her, then shoved her into a chair so hard that the chair nearly fell over backward. She managed to steady herself and right the chair, even as he said, “Don’t move, damn you. I won’t tell you anything.”
So Rohan had been right. Tibolt did know; he just wasn’t talking. She had to do something, but what? He was standing away from her now, not more than three feet between them, his gun pointed directly at her chest.
“You’re not worthy to know. No one is but I. All those old fools protecting the secret . . . but that isn’t your affair. Hurry and tell me. I suspect my brother will look for you soon, then he will worry. He will probably imagine that you are making love in one of the antechambers with a neighbor. Do it, damn you, or I will take Marianne.”
Susannah stared at that gun, at Tibolt, the vicar, her husband’s brother, who was aiming it at her. He was looking alternately at her and all around her bedchamber. Did he expect to see the map propped up on the mantel?
But she couldn’t tell him where they were, not yet. She swallowed her fear and said, “You told Rohan that George had only mentioned the map to you, that was all. You told Rohan that you knew nothing else. But George wasn’t involved, was he? It was you all along, you and those two dreadful men.”
Tibolt raised his hand slowly, so very slowly. She knew what was coming, but she wasn’t fast enough. His fist struck her cheek. She felt a sharp, digging pain, then the sting of blood. He stepped back from her, panting. “I cut you, but it isn’t deep. I doubt it will scar, more’s the pity.” He looked down at his hand, and she saw the heavy ring he was wearing. He hadn’t worn that when she and Rohan visited the vicarage. She would have remembered it. It looked to be solid silver, cut flat across the top. Tibolt was rubbing his fingers where the ring had cut him when he’d hit her. There was something on the ring, a figure etched into the silver. Susannah strained forward to see. At that moment, he happened to turn the ring toward her. It looked like a churchman wearing a bishop’s mitre. Were there words beneath the figure? She couldn’t tell. What did it mean?
He said slowly, rubbing his finger, “George wouldn’t tell me where he’d put the map. Before I had a chance to get it out of him, the little sod had the gall to get himself drowned.” He added, more to himself than to her, “A pity, but there was nothing any of us could do about it. Enough now, Susannah. Give me the map and the key.”
“Why won’t you tell me what the map is for?”
“You don’t deserve to know. I will tell you only that the prize is mine by moral right. I will be the future Archbishop of Canterbury, if that is what I choose to be. Actually, I will be the most powerful man in the world, if that is what I choose to be. I will rule wherever I wish to rule. No one will be able to go against me. I will have ultimate domination. Do you understand me? I will be as a god.” He was almost shouting now, his eyes wild and nearly black in the dim candlelight. He drew a deep breath, steadying himself. “Now, shut up and get it, Susannah, or I will strike you down and take Marianne. Everyone is in the ballroom; even Marianne’s nurse is sitting at the head of the stairs, singing with the musicians. I saw her there myself. Do as I bid you.”
Susannah knew she had to do something. Think. No, she couldn’t take the chance that he would hurt Marianne. There was no hope for it. She reached up to unfasten the necklace with its locket, only to realize that she was wearing the exquisite diamond and sapphire necklace Rohan had given her.
“Well?”
“I don’t know what Rohan did with it. He didn’t tell either Charlotte or me.”
“Very well. I shall fetch Marianne.” He strode toward her, and she knew he would strike her again.
She raised her hand to stop him. “The map and the key are behind two miniatures in a locket that George gave me. I always wear it, which is why that man Lambie Lambert could never find it. After we discovered the map and key in the locket, we decided to keep them there. It seemed safest.
“This evening Rohan gave me these jewels. He took off my locket and slipped it into his pocket. I swear to you, Tibolt, that is the truth. Just look at the necklace. You know I would only wear this for a very special occasion.”
Tibolt rolled his eyes, his anger building. His mouth tightened, his lips a thin line. Damnation, he believed her.
Susannah could picture that austere, vicious look when he exhorted his congregation. She held her breath as he said finally, “You’re too afraid to lie to me.” He cursed long and fluently. He was silent for a long time, that gun of his never wavering from her chest. Finally, he waved the gun at her and said, “Rip off a strip of your petticoat. No, I’m not going to kill you. It would gain me nothing. When I have the power I desire, perhaps I will then.” She ripped off a long strip.
He pulled her arms behind the chair and tied her wrists together, tight. Then he tied her ankles to the chair legs. For an instant his hand rested on her ankle and his fingers stroked over her stocking. She felt such fear that she knew she’d choke on it. Then he rose. He was breathing hard. He stuffed the rest of her petticoat in her mouth, ripped off more, and tied it firmly behind her head.
“There, that should hold you for a goodly time. You’re still bleeding a bit. It’s a pity that George had you first. And now you’ve had Rohan as well. Wouldn’t you like to try all three brothers? It could be a competition of sorts. Of course, you’d have to be the judge.”
If her mouth had been free, she would have spat on him. As it was, there was nothing she could do except gaze at him as if he were nothing more than dirt beneath her feet.
He was on the point of leaving when he turned very suddenly toward her dressing table. “My God, you little liar! I should have known, a woman always lies, always . . .”
He picked up the locket on its gold chain and swung it from his fingers. “So Rohan put it in his pocket, did he?”
He walked back to her, all the while swinging that gold chain. He struck her hard across her cheek, with the flat o
f his hand this time. She felt a narrow rivulet of blood course down her face. He ripped the sapphire and diamond necklace from her throat and stuffed it into his pocket.
Then he was gone, closing the door very quietly behind him. Susannah looked toward the two candles. They were burning low.
Rohan looked across the vast Mountvale ballroom, built in the mid-eighteenth century by his grandfather, Alfred Montley Carrington. It was a splendid room—much too large, he’d always believed, but it had admirably suited his purpose this evening. There were seventy-five guests, every local family of any note within a twenty-mile radius. Even the ancient Mr. Loomis, a relic from the Colonial war who had actually stood at Cornwallis’s right hand when he’d surrendered at Yorktown, was grinning with toothless glee at Mrs. Pratt, who was young enough to be his daughter and Rohan’s grandmother. All the guests had appeared to enjoy themselves. He’d made his announcement midway through the evening, Susannah on one side of him, his mother on the other. He’d presented his wife to them with all the pride he felt, remembering only belatedly that he’d supposedly been a bounder and kept her in hiding. He’d been contrite. He’d pleaded youth and confusion. Of course, everyone had already known. Probably all their servants and pets had known as well. When their guests had congratulated him afterward, Susannah had pinched his hand, for he had been shameless in his manipulations.
And his mother had said, “Dearest, I vow never to aggravate you to the point that you will strangle me. I am convinced that your peers would congratulate you on how well you had killed me. Naturally, this group wasn’t much of a challenge, but still, you did well. I’m proud of you.”
Talk about proud, his mother and Susannah had done him proud. The long line of glass doors stood open onto the balcony. Fresh flowers from the Mountvale gardens and potted plants of many varieties were scattered around the room. There were even three palm trees he’d managed to obtain from a captain who had just come from the southern coast of Cornwall. The orchestra sat on a small dais at one end. At the other end were three long tables laden with food and drink.
It was one o’clock in the morning. To the best of his reckoning and Fitz’s, no one had as yet left. He wanted his wife, but he saw that she wasn’t on the dance floor. He hoped none of the local ladies had gotten hold of her and were hurling sweet-barbed questions at her upstairs in the lady’s withdrawing room. No, there was Lady Dauntry, and she was actually smiling at something her husband had said. That must surely be a miracle, he thought, although the champagne punch was strong enough to make a nun dance.
His mother was dancing with Colonel Nemesis Jones, a man of middle years and apparently the only man in the whole south of England who might be immune to Charlotte’s array of quite tangible charms. He heard her laugh—a real laugh, not one of her flirtatious laughs. It was the way she laughed with him. The way she had laughed with his father. He could tell the difference from the age of ten. Colonel Jones did not change expression, as far as Rohan could tell from his distance.
Where was Susannah?
He went on a mission of rescue. He was certain the old biddies were at her again. But who? Every old biddy he was concerned about was present in the ballroom.
There were several ladies in the withdrawing room, and they were suitably shocked to see him stick his head in the door. He was charming; he was chastened and apologetic. All three of the ladies encouraged him to remain. What he had to suffer because of his reputation, he thought, as he hurriedly removed himself.
He frowned as he walked down the long corridor to the nursery. He looked in. Lottie was asleep in her narrow bed in the small adjoining room, Marianne in her bed beside her.
No Susannah.
It was at that instant that he felt a sudden tremor of alarm as sharp as if someone had just grabbed him and shaken him. Something was wrong, he knew it. Dear God, what had happened? He’d checked with the men patrolling the grounds. He was told that no strangers had attempted to come into the house. He hurried to his bedchamber, flinging open the door. The branch of two candles was nearly burned down.
No Susannah.
He opened the adjoining door and strode into her bedchamber. At first he couldn’t credit what he was seeing. She was tied to a chair, staring helplessly at him from above a gag, making slurred noises in her throat.
At that point one of the candles flickered, wavered, and burned out.
“My God!” he yelled and ran to her. He pulled off the strip of petticoat and jerked the wadded cotton from her mouth.
“What happened? Are you all right? Who did this?”
Susannah was working her mouth to get the feeling back, rubbing her fingers over her lips. “It was Tibolt. I’m sorry, Rohan, but he forced me up here. He said you should have posted a guard near that little gate behind the apple orchard. He said it led to a small door into a chamber next to the library. He was indeed the man who put Marianne out on the ledge that first night, the man she said looked like you. He took the locket. It is a pity, but he saw it lying on the dressing table. He ripped off my beautiful necklace and took that as well.”
Who cared about the bloody locket or the necklace? He could only stare down at her, wanting desperately to believe that she’d made a mistake. He reached out his hand and cupped her chin. “He struck you. By God, that bastard struck you.” There was utter rage in his voice.
The other candle burned out.
27
THE GUESTS WERE FINALLY GONE. IT WAS JUST AFTER three o’clock in the morning. Charlotte, Susannah, and Ro-han were in the library, sipping brandy. Fitz and Mrs. Beete stood side by side in the doorway. Susannah’s cheek was bandaged. Rohan would have preferred to tell them nothing, but they were his family and so he’d told them most of it. Only George’s role in this had to be kept quiet.
“Lordie,” Mrs. Beete said, clutching a bowl of ice between her large hands as if it were a man’s neck. It was intended for Susannah’s cheek, to reduce the swelling. “Mr. Tibolt. I’m sorry to say this, milady, but he was such a little sneak as a boy. Always spying on the housemaids, hiding behind the stairs to see them straightening their stockings. I always hoped he would outgrow it.”
“True enough,” Charlotte said, staring down at her swinging foot. “He was a sneak,” she continued, not looking up from her slipper. “I didn’t know he spied on the maids. That was not well done of him. His father would have been appalled.” She had danced so much there was very nearly a hole in the sole of her shoe.
“Apparently he did outgrow it,” Fitz said. “He went on to more wickedness. I wish now that he would have remained a sneak. That would have been tolerable, but this? He actually struck her ladyship. My lord, what are we to do now?”
“First things first, Fitz. Her ladyship had to give him the locket. He threatened to take Miss Marianne, you see. He also told her that it belonged to him, to no one else, and that he had a moral right to have it, which is an interesting and perhaps telling thing to say.” Of course Susannah had told him and Charlotte everything Tibolt had said—strange, all of it. Neither Fitz nor Mrs. Beete had asked where Susannah had gotten the locket, thank God. Perhaps someday they would wonder.
“He will be the future Archbishop of Canterbury, if he chooses to be so,” Rohan said slowly, thoughtfully, his fingers still curled around his brandy snifter. “He could be the most powerful man in the world, if he chooses to be so. He would have ultimate domination.” He looked up. “This makes no sense at all. It sounds like some sort of magic potion, but what the devil could he mean by all his claims?”
“He was in such a rage that his eyes were nearly black,” Susannah said now. “I remember thinking that he seemed to be beyond himself. He was nearly screaming at me when he said all that.”
Charlotte rose and shook out her skirts. “Well, tonight was a success in terms of our neighbors. That is something. As for this, it is confounding. There was nothing else, Susannah?”
She raised her hand to the bandage on her cheek. “Yes. The reason my che
ek was cut is that he hit me with his ring. He cut himself with the ring as well. It was big, heavy.”
“What ring?” Rohan asked. “I’ve never seen Tibolt wear a ring.”
“Neither have I,” Charlotte said.
“It was silver, flat on top. I remember thinking it was very odd-looking, so I tried to get a good look at it. I think there was a carving of a bishop in his mitre on the top of it.”
“Can you draw it?”
“Yes, certainly.” She started to rise, but he stopped her. “No, wait here, I will fetch foolscap and a quill.”
When he returned, it took Susannah only a minute to render the ring’s likeness. “There, this is as close as I remember. Also, there were words beneath the etching. I couldn’t make them out.”
“It is a bishop wearing a mitre,” Rohan said slowly. He was silent, staring at the shadowed painting of a long ago Carrington on the far wall. He said slowly, “Someone had to give George that half map.” He looked quickly up at Fitz and Mrs. Beete. Thank God they were speaking between themselves and hadn’t heard him. He would have to be more careful in the future. He said aloud to Susannah and his mother, “Why? For safekeeping, perhaps? In any case it must be someone in Oxford.”
Susannah said slowly, “Tibolt said something about ‘all those old fools protecting the secret.’ I just remembered George told me about a churchman he’d assisted, ‘a grand old man,’ was how he’d described him. Could there be a connection there?”
“Do you remember the churchman’s name?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes,” Susannah said. “It was Bishop Roundtree. Could he have given George the half map and the golden key?”
“I have never believed in coincidences,” Rohan said as he rose and stretched. “Tibolt is wearing a ring with a bishop in a mitre carved on it.” He kept his voice low. “George assists a bishop—the same bishop—and that in itself is quite a coincidence. George shows up with half a map and a golden key.” He reached out his hand to his wife. “Come, my dear, it’s time for you to rest. We will go to Oxford tomorrow. I very much want to meet Bishop Roundtree.”
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