The General's Granddaughter

by Dorothy Mack

  “Fortunate Clara, you mean. If you had not been coming up the stairs at that precise moment, it is likely the girl would have broken her neck. The stairs and the landing are stone, and she would have fairly flown down them headfirst.”

  “Would not Clara have seen the wire when she came up to get the tray?”

  “She did not come up for it. When she brought up the milk over an hour and a half ago, Richard inveigled her into playing a game of spillikins with him. She was up here with us the whole time. Since you were late, Clara decided to take the tray down when they finished. That wire was put there during the time Clara was in the nursery.”

  “By whom?”

  Sarah was shaking now, and Lottie urged, “Come and have some hot tea, love. I had Maria bring it to Richard’s room after the mess was cleaned up.”

  Sarah allowed herself to be led through to her brother’s bedchamber, where a small table had been set near the fireplace. Obediently, she sat where indicated and drank the strong tea Lottie prepared for her.

  “What are we going to do, Sarah?”

  Sarah started. Richard had not spoken a word up to now; in fact, he had been so quiet she had forgotten his presence in the horror of the discovery that had just been reported to her. Her eyes flew from his set features and anxious eyes to Lottie’s in mute protest, but Lottie merely shrugged.

  “I could not very well keep it from him when he found the wire. Richard was as quick as I to make the correct deduction.”

  “What are we going to do, Sarah?” the boy asked again.

  “Nothing,” she replied decisively. Seeing the stubborn protest in his face, she went on before he could speak. “Whom do we accuse, a servant? One of the family? Which one?” As his expression became more troubled and uncertain, she continued, “You see? There is nothing to tell us who did this horrible thing. We must simply trust that when the perpetrator hears how the plan misfired and injured someone, it will shock him — or her — into a realization of the enormity of this misdeed.”

  “But we must tell Grandfather at least. He will send them all away, and then you will be safe,” cried the boy, clearly demonstrating where his thoughts were directed.

  “No, Richard, that is the last thing we must do. Grandfather is a very frail old man, and it would upset him greatly to have to think a member of his family capable of such a deed. The doctor warned that we must at all cost ensure that nothing is permitted to upset him.”

  “He’d be more upset if you were killed!”

  “I am persuaded nothing of this nature will happen again. Promise me, Richard, that you will not speak of this to Grandfather — or to anyone else in the house either.” As he hesitated, she took his hand in a comforting clasp and compelled his eyes with hers. “Promise me, my dear.”

  “All right, Sarah. I won’t speak of it to anyone in the house. But everyone will know anyway. The servants are bound to talk about Clara’s fall,” he added as she looked at him doubtfully.

  “Yes, but Clara does not have any idea how the accident happened, and no one has seen the wire except we three.”

  “And the person who put it there,” Lottie said grimly, having the last word.

  It was the last word only because Sarah refused to discuss the matter further. She saw Richard into bed, advised Lottie to do the same, and went directly to her own suite. She could not face those people in the drawing room again tonight.

  For the first time in her life Sarah locked every door that led into her bedchamber, four in all. She did not even attempt to get into her bed until she had conquered a recurring tendency to shake like a blancmange every few minutes. Instead, she huddled into a boudoir chair by the fireplace. There was no possibility of sleep in any case because her mind insisted on behaving like a mechanical toy: it would no sooner run down than a new worry would act like a key that wound it up again.

  She had meant every word she said to Richard about her grandfather. The shock of learning that a member of his family was capable of cold-blooded murder — she shivered as her mind stumbled over the phrase — might well bring on a fatal heart attack. So might the news of her own death at the hands of one of her relatives, she acknowledged with another bout of shivering, but she was not going to let that happen.

  Luck had been with her tonight, and with Clara. It was a spine-chilling thought that it might favour a murderer the next time. She huddled deeper into the chair, admitting and confronting her fears on that head. She had not convinced Richard there would be no more attempts, not surprising when she could not convince herself.

  She must take precautions. The locked doors would protect her tonight, but what about tomorrow? And the day after? Taking a deep calming breath, Sarah decided that she could not afford to look beyond tomorrow for the sake of her sanity. What precautions could she take tomorrow? She forced her numbed brain into a rational mode and tried to consider coolly. Of a certainty she would watch where she planted her feet at all times. She could also see to it that she was never alone with any member of the family. That much she could do.

  But could she? Unbidden, a picture of Mark hauling her into the chapel this morning came into her mind. He had admitted gleefully that he and Joseph had conspired together to get her to the spot of the ambush. The results had been delightful this morning, but another conspiracy, even an unknowing one on the part of a servant, could prove lethal.

  Tomorrow would be the critical day. Mr. Hammond arrived tomorrow. His business with her grandfather should not take very long. Presumably, Sir Hector had sent for his lawyer only after settling in his own mind the way he wished to leave his fortune. She shivered again. It could not be a coincidence that the attempt on her life had occurred within an hour or two of her grandfather’s announcement that his attorney was coming for the purpose of writing a new will. If the perpetrator of that fiendish act was convinced that Sarah would be the principal heir, then he or she would try again tomorrow. Sarah faced this squarely and decided her best defence was to stay close to Richard and Lottie all day.

  She was growing very cold. She chafed her arms below their brief sleeves and got stiffly out of the sheltering chair to prepare for bed. As she crawled beneath the covers a few minutes later, she wondered if the guilty party would reveal his or her identity in some fashion tomorrow when confronted with an intended victim in perfect condition. On the heels of this optimistic thought came a realization that it was a forlorn hope. Of course the assailant already knew his intended victim had survived the “accident.” Her death or injury would have raised a hue and cry throughout the house. There would be no giveaway starts of surprise or facial tics on her appearance before her family tomorrow, when tomorrow finally came. She only hoped her enemy was spending as miserable a sleepless night as she was.

  As she pursued this avenue of thought, it occurred to Sarah that though her enemy knew the wire had not succeeded, he would not know whether it had been discovered. If it had, the crucial advantage of an unsuspecting victim would be lost in future attempts.

  A sudden conviction jolted through her like a bolt of lightning and jerked her upright in the bed. The person who had strung that deadly wire across the stairs would go back sometime during the night to retrieve the evidence of the attempted crime if possible. If no one had discovered the wire, Clara’s “accident” would remain just that. If it had been removed — (as it had) — the perpetrator would know that greater caution would be required on any further attempts. She had pushed aside the bedcovers and extended one foot over the edge of the mattress when she began to shake with fright. She sat poised on the edge, struggling to gain command of her fears for what seemed like an eternity before a small whimper escaped her lips and she fell back onto the pillows.

  It was no use. She was trembling and sweating at the mere idea of going back to those stairs tonight. Even if there were a place of concealment from which she could watch the top of the stairs unobserved, she would not be able to muster the requisite degree of courage to do this thing. If she’d o
nly been using her wits earlier when Richard and Lottie showed her the wire, she might have sent a message to William. He’d have been willing to set a trap for the attacker. It was too late now. In fact, it could be literally too late to catch the person returning. Sarah groped for the tinder box on the bedside table and managed to light her candle after several tries. Almost one-thirty in the morning. The household had been asleep for hours. It was far too late to think of setting traps. The person would have acted hours ago.

  Sarah blew out her candle again and resumed staring into the darkness. The plan would not have worked anyway for the simple reason that she could not afford to trust any member of her family, not even William, who, until he had revealed his deeper feelings for her today, had slipped so comfortably into the role of the older brother she had never possessed. A picture of the drawing room as she had entered it tonight after seeing her grandfather to his rooms flashed across her memory. Only Arabella, Cecil, and Aunt Ridgemont had been present when she had arrived. Any of the others might have strung that wire across the stairs before joining the party in the drawing room. It was only the matter of a few minutes to set it in place. Aunt Adelaide had never returned at all, and the others had wandered in separately. In fact, she groaned, now that she really thought back, she had no way of knowing how long those already in the drawing room had been there when she arrived. Aunt Ridgemont had stopped by her rooms to get her tatting, unless she had sent a servant for it, and for all she knew to the contrary, Arabella and Cecil might have arrived just seconds before she did.

  Which one? Who hated her enough to deprive her of life? The enormity of the action, of the decision to take another’s life somehow seemed beyond the scope of ordinary human behaviour. Which of her relatives, her ordinary-seeming relatives, was capable of conduct outside the parameters of normal behaviour? Or was it strictly a case of material gain and no personal animosity at all? The fact that the attempt had been made on the heels of her grandfather’s declaration of his intent to change his will would seem to indicate this motive. In which case, it was not at all necessary for her enemy to bear her any personal dislike to decide to remove her from his path. Which of her seemingly normal relatives was beyond the reach of universal moral precepts? Sarah devoted uncounted sleepless hours to the problem but was no closer to an answer when she drifted into an uneasy slumber shortly before dawn.

  CHAPTER 15

  In a contradictory fashion, the very air of normalcy prevailing the next morning contributed to Sarah’s sense of moving through a dream — or, in the present situation, a nightmare.

  Maria appeared with morning chocolate at the usual hour, which had never seemed more ungodly. Sarah looked upon the smiling girl with a jaundiced eye, having struggled up from the depths of oblivion in order to run and unlock the door to the hall after heaven knew how much racket Maria had created with her persistent knocking. She returned a reluctant grunt to the maid’s cheery greeting before practically diving back into bed.

  Maria was instantly all sympathy. “Don’t you feel well this morning, Miss Sarah? Why was the door locked?” After putting the tray on a side table, she bustled over to open the draperies without waiting for an answer.

  Sarah made use of the delay to rub the sleep out of her eyes and try to reassemble what wits remained to her after the most wretched night of her life. By the time Maria turned back to her she was ready with two lies, one of which turned out to be only too true, unfortunately. “I have a headache, and all the doors are locked because I intended to sleep late this morning.”

  “I am so sorry for disturbing you, Miss Sarah.” The crestfallen girl approached the bed with a cup of steaming chocolate.

  The sight of her sweet little face added remorse to Sarah’s other problems. “It was not your fault, Maria,” she said hastily. “I neglected to leave a message that I did not wish to be disturbed this morning. That smells good.”

  Her false brightness as she accepted the unwanted chocolate had the desired effect of bringing a smile back to Maria’s face. Sarah forced herself to take a sip and smile approval, thus freeing the maid to set about gathering up the discarded clothing lying in a heap on the floor, a task she was rarely called upon to perform for her generally neat mistress.

  “How is Clara this morning?” Sarah remembered to ask.

  Maria’s lengthy report on her friend’s spirits — high — and her ankle — sore and swollen — took them through the chocolate phase, by which time Sarah was feeling nearly human again.

  She took special pains with her appearance in a vain attempt to disguise the purple shadows under her eyes, a legacy of a largely sleepless night. She paid extra attention to her hair, deepening the soft waves at the temples to draw attention away from her pinched features. It seemed the right moment for the debut of her new morning gown also, fashioned from the shiny cotton fabric in the rosy-tan shade of the breast of a mourning dove that she and Lottie had bought in Marshfield.

  Sarah pinned a smile on her face as she knocked on her grandfather’s door. Was it only yesterday afternoon when her task had been to disguise her happiness at accepting Mark’s proposal of marriage? Events at Beech Hill moved with a speed that set her head spinning, but she had best guard against that. She was going to need all her wits about her to get through this day.

  Sarah exchanged amenities with Somers, who eyed her closely but made no comment on her ruined looks. No consideration of tact or delicacy had ever been known to set curbs on Sir Hector’s tongue, however. He watched his granddaughter’s approach through narrowed, still-keen eyes.

  “What ails you this morning, Sarah? I’ve seen troopers who looked better after a night of roistering about town.”

  Sarah smiled palely and responded in the same spirit. “I promise you I touched nothing beyond a half-glass of wine at dinner. I have a bit of a headache this morning, that’s all.” She dropped a kiss on her grandfather’s cheek and glanced at the empty tray in front of him. “You’ve made a good breakfast,” she said with approval.

  Sir Hector brushed aside the obvious attempt at diversion with an impatient twitch of his head. “I hope you have not been so idiotish as to let this business of my will upset you.” His voice was gruff, but there was a faintly anxious look in his searching eyes, and Sarah realized this was as close to an apology as her grandfather would ever come. Fortunately, since she could think of nothing to say, Sir Hector gave her no chance to reply as he went on, “I also hope you have not been cherishing any grandiose notions of becoming a great heiress, because you’ll be sadly disappointed if you have.”

  This time she actually laughed at his bellicose expression and was rewarded by a relaxation of the ferocity. “I never thought you were such a wet goose, but that misguided daughter of mine has been indulging in monumental sulks and high fidgets ever since she learned of your existence. Just because I’m tied to these rooms doesn’t mean I do not know what’s afoot in my own house, never think it. If she chose to believe me a romantic old dodderer in my dotage, to be swayed by a pair of amber eyes and a pretty face, even if the face is your grandmother’s, then the more fool she. I did not see why I should hasten to disabuse her of her cherished fantasies — or the others either. Let them think what they will.”

  Oh, Grandfather, Sarah thought with mounting distress as she listened to this rambling rationale, if you only knew what you’ve done! She was brought out of her unhappy musings by the sudden cessation of his voice and an expectant expression on his aquiline features.

  “I … I am sure you have been most equitable, Grandfather,” she murmured.

  “That’s more than the rest of them will think. They’re a greedy lot, my loving family.”

  Sarah felt incapable of addressing the bitterness in his voice, so she remained silent, and after a brief hiatus Sir Hector resumed in a businesslike manner.

  “This place will go to William eventually. He’s the only one of ’em who cares a ha’penny for it. It takes a mint of money to maintain it, and it will t
ake a lot more to bring it into the nineteenth century, but that won’t be my problem, thank God. It will do for me as it is.”

  “What about Uncle Horace?”

  “Oh, Horace will have tenancy and the use of the income for the immediate future. He is my son, after all, whether or not he’s the son I’d have chosen. If he wishes to live here, well and good; if not, he’ll have the wherewithal to stay in London and keep in with the political set, which is what he’s always yearned to do. He doesn’t have a feel for the land like William does. Well, for that matter, neither did I. The army was always my first love. But William’s children will grow up here, whatever arrangements Horace chooses to make.”

  “I’m glad, Grandfather,” Sarah said softly. “It was William who really introduced me to Beech Hill, though Grace showed me around when she thought I was the new housekeeper.”

  “And I let you take a crack at being the housekeeper,” Sir Hector chortled with his devilish grin. “You were none the worse for the experience either.”

  “Not at all,” she agreed with an impish smile of her own. “I enjoyed it.”

  “The decision to leave the estate to William won’t be popular in all quarters,” admitted Sir Hector, “though why Adelaide thinks I should ever feel responsible for Vincent when he stood to succeed his father, has always passed my understanding. The only thing I’m giving Vincent is that black stallion of mine he’s been after since I stopped riding. He wants to breed him, and I’ll say this for Vincent: he may be the complete town beau without two ideas to rub together, but he does know horseflesh.”

  “My aunt will be disappointed, I fear,” Sarah put in hesitantly.

  “Adelaide would be disappointed if she and her children received less than one hundred percent of the estate. That’s simply the way she’s made. She’s already got her mother’s jewellery, which is worth a small fortune. To keep the peace, I’ve arranged for her to have a modest annual income, though Townsend left her very well fixed. It will go to Arabella eventually. I’ve provided a healthy dowry for both of you girls, and you needn’t look for more afterward. I see no reason to further enrich Eversley at the expense of my grandsons.”