Chance the Winds of Fortune

by Laurie McBain

  “They did not kill Rhea Claire. No, listen to what I have to say first, Rina,” Lucien warned her as she scrambled to her feet, her eyes glowing with renewed hope.

  Forgetting that Kate’s blood was staining his hands, Lucien took Sabrina’s hands between his and stared into her expectant face. “Kate admitted that she had not killed Rhea, although not for a lack of trying. She said they had drugged Rhea, then sold her as an indentured servant. She was put on board a ship bound for the colonies. Even Kate does not know what Rhea’s ultimate fate was to be,” he said bluntly, afraid she would get her hopes up too high, for the horrors of such a journey were not unknown to him. The fate of many a traveler crossing the seas was uncertain, but the hardships were even greater for those who could not afford to pay for proper food and accommodation. But even if they could afford it, it mattered little if the ship were sailing on violent seas.

  “The colonies?” Sabrina whispered, thinking of that untamed wilderness so far away. “Oh, dear God, my poor Rhea,” she cried, agonized by the realization of what her daughter must be suffering. “What shall we do? How will we find her? Oh, Lucien!” she cried, but this time with tears of joy wetting her cheeks. “Rhea is alive. I feel certain. At least we have a chance now of finding her alive. ’Tis far better than not knowing anything.” She spoke almost challengingly, as if refusing to believe the worst.

  “Rina? Lucien? What is this about Rhea being alive? I heard the shots and came running, although it took me several endless minutes, and a stubbed toe, to figure out where the two of you were,” Richard said from the doorway, his bare feet sticking out from beneath the hem of his nightdress and loosely hanging robe. “Are you all right?” he asked with concern as he noticed Sabrina’s tear-streaked face.

  “I am fine, Richard,” Sabrina reassured him. “We are going to get Rhea back!” she exclaimed, unable to contain her exuberance.

  “Rina, I don’t think you—” Lucien interrupted, his words of caution drowned out as several well-muscled young men, led by a blustering Butterick, stormed into the study.

  “Your Graces! Are you injured? Who fired the pistol? Is anyone hurt? Where’s the culprit?!” he demanded aggressively, his sharp eyes missing nothing in the room, including Lord Wrainton in his nightdress, his red hair standing on end. “Was it the cousins, Your Grace?”

  “It was Kate. She is alone but wounded, and therefore very dangerous, Butterick,” the duke warned him. “She sneaked in through the underground passage. I imagine that is the way she will escape.”

  “That she-devil. Always was the meaner of the two. And her brother? Will he be waitin’ for her, do you think, Your Grace?” Butterick asked, wanting to be prepared if he came face-to-face with the two of them.

  “Eventually, I suspect,” the duke said strangely, then shook his head. “Percy is dead. We have only Kate to deal with.”

  “Aye, that’s enough, I’ll wager,” Butterick muttered, thinking privately he’d rather be going up against a maddened bull. “I’ll send a couple of fellows to the outside entrance of the passage to catch her as she’s coming out. Then, me and a couple more of my lads will go in this end. We’ll cut her off between us, we will,” Butterick promised. “She won’t be gettin’ up to any more mischief after tonight!”

  * * *

  Kate stared down at the peacefully sleeping child. Oblivious to her wound and to the blood dripping onto the quilted coverlet, she reached out and lightly touched the silken blond head. Kate glared around the room, cursing the darkness, for she could barely make out the features of this boy child. The banked fire in the hearth gave off little light and deepened the shadows, making it more difficult for her to see her way across the room. She had already stumbled once into a rocking horse. The scraping noise had sounded loud enough to wake the dead, or so she had feared, but the nanny in the narrow bed in the corner continued to snore undisturbed.

  With a sly smile, Kate glanced over her shoulder at the covered hump in the bed, then over at the other crib, where the girl child continued to sleep peacefully. She imagined herself sleeping there so long ago, so innocent of what her future would hold. In the darkness, the nursery looked much the way it had when she and Percy had lived at Camareigh.

  “Percy,” she said softly, lovingly. “I have come for you. ’Tis time we left, Percy. Wake up, love,” she urged him, staring down at Andrew Dominick’s cherubic face. Then she carefully lifted the slumbering child from the warmth of the covers.

  Cradling him against her breast, she hugged this small body, which still possessed the precious breath of life. “Sweet Percy,” she sang as she walked to the door. “Sweet, sweet Percy. Kate has come for you.”

  A low, rumbling snort and cough from the bed of the nanny halted Kate in her steps. She stood staring through the flickering darkness at the slowly stirring shape beneath the covers.

  “If ye please, now. Who be ye there?” a slightly querulous voice demanded. “Yer Grace, is it?”

  Kate bit her lip in vexation as she heard a fumbling at the bedside table; then a light was struck and she was caught in its glow.

  “Agin, I’m askin’ who be ye? I’m not knowin’ ye, am I?” the quivering voice questioned worriedly; although the old woman’s mind was still fogged with sleep, a sense of urgency seemed to be penetrating it, warning her something was not right. “What have ye got there, now? To be sure, I can’t be seein’ a thing without me specs,” the nanny muttered irritably. “Now ye be waitin’ a minute. Just what d’ye think’ ye be doin’ in here, young woman? What is that ye be holdin’ now? Mercy! ’Tis young Lord Andrew fer sure! What d’ye think ye be doin’—” The words halted abruptly, for Kate had turned her face fully to the candle’s revealing light, deciding there was one sure way of silencing the old biddy.

  The nanny’s scream of horror followed Kate’s exit from the room and echoed down the halls of Camareigh, but by the time it had drifted to the brother and sister walking arm in arm along the corridor near the nursery, it sounded hardly more than a moaning through the trees.

  “I think I understand why Lucien would wish to be there when they catch up with Kate,” Richard was saying, shaking with cold from the icy drafts swirling around his bare legs. “You would think, however, that he would hate the very sight of her. And yet, do you know, Rina,” he said curiously, “I think he pities her, though God only knows why. I’ve never really thought of Lucien being an overly compassionate man. Please do not misunderstand me,” he added quickly, “for Lucien is a good man, but he is just a trifle hard and unforgiving at times.”

  “You are right, Richard, but Kate is, after all, family,” Sabrina said. She herself was slightly surprised at Lucien’s actions.

  “I suppose so, strange though it is. Do you know, Rina, that when our father died I should have felt nothing. After all, I had only spoken to the man once to my recollection, and then I was scared to death of him. But when you told me the news, well,” Richard said awkwardly, as if embarrassed by what he was about to admit, “I was saddened. I felt a loss, and yet I am not certain why.”

  Sabrina smiled understandingly at her young brother; then, resting her cheek against the curve of his shoulder, she said, “’Tis only natural that you would grieve for something that you had never known, and by all rights should have. You were not crying for James Verrick, a man you never knew, but for some idealized man who could have been a father to you,” she tried to explain. Her voice had taken on the brittle quality it always did when she spoke of their late father.

  “You did not cry nor grieve, did you, Rina?” Richard asked now, looking down at his sister’s still beautiful face.

  “No,” she answered shortly. “He had been dead to me for a long time. He abandoned us, Dickie, and from that day forward he ceased to exist for me, except as some despicable creature to be scorned.” The bitterness and hurt she had known all of those years was still vivid in her mind.

 
; “Actually,” she added, bringing the conversation back to their immediate problem, “knowing Lucien as I do, I really suspect that he wants to make certain that nothing goes wrong where Kate is concerned. A mistake like that could cost you your life. And even though she is quite mad, the woman is still a cold-blooded murderess. I do not think she will be able to escape the gallows this time.” Then Sabrina glanced up and saw their usually decorous nanny reeling along the corridor like a drunken sailor.

  Richard must have had similar thoughts as he stared in disbelief at the diminutive woman who, despite her tottering steps, was approaching quickly. With an uneasy laugh, he exclaimed, “Good Lord, she is certainly muddled. Well, you were warned, Rina, about taking on an Irishwoman as nanny,” Richard said with a wink. “I can remember Mason warning you against such a risky decision. He said, while begging your pardon at the same time—always proper Mason is—that you would rue the day you took her on.”

  Sabrina snorted rudely. “That was almost twenty years ago, and besides, as you well know, Mason is prejudiced. ’Tis ancient history, but his fiancée ran off with an Irish footman when they were all in service somewhere else. O’Casey has always been above reproach, much to Mason’s disappointment.” Sabrina always had staunchly supported her choice of a nanny, although now, as the woman fell to her knees before her, she was beginning to have her doubts, especially as she listened to her hysterical babbling.

  “Oooh, Yer Grace! Yer Grace. Lord help us, ’tis demons, they are. And they be comin’ fer me next! Oooh, may the saints be preservin’ us!” she wailed, wringing her hands. “’Tis the devil himself, ’tis. Come fer us from the fiery gates of hell. Had his she-devil with him, he did, and never, God rest me soul, have I ever seen such a face. Like a fiend, ’twas,” she croaked, her ringers tightening around Sabrina’s arm. “Came fer him, her did, and all aglow, her was! Then in a pouf of smoke, her was gone,” she sniffed, then began to cry convulsively.

  “Lord help us is right,” Richard said, eyeing the old woman pityingly, for obviously she had become demented. “I am certainly thankful you insisted on looking in on the children, Rina. No telling what could have happened with O’Casey here talking about demons and—” Richard paused, becoming aware of his sister’s unusual stillness. “I am sorry, Rina. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I really did not mean that anything had happened to the twins,” he apologized, thinking his casually spoken words had upset her.

  “Kate,” Sabrina said, a strange expression in her eyes as she stared up the corridor beyond the nanny.

  “Kate?” Richard repeated. “But she’s already left the house.”

  “Has she?” Sabrina demanded doubtfully as she bent down and struggled to free her nightdress from O’Casey’s death-like grip. “’Tis Kate she is babbling about, Richard. I know it is. Don’t you understand? Kate was the she-devil who frightened O’Casey half out of her wits. If you had wakened to see Kate’s scarred face staring down at you, you would be half mad too.”

  “Here, let me help you,” Richard said, prying loose the whimpering nanny’s grasp. “God, I wish Lucien were here, and not somewhere out on the grounds,” he said worriedly, the pathetic image of the elder Mr. Taber suddenly coming to his mind.

  “I want you to find him, Richard. Please,” Sabrina begged when she saw him shake his head. “If Kate is indeed loose in the house, we will need all of the help we can find. You can run faster than I can, Richard. Now go! Please!”

  Richard hesitated only an instant before he rushed off as bidden, retracing the steps they’d taken just moments before. Sabrina watched his figure disappear into the darkness shrouding the corridor.

  “You wait here, O’Casey,” she told the cowering woman. “I will only be a few minutes. I am just going to tuck in the twins. Do you understand, O’Casey?” she said gently, picking up the branched candlestick that Richard had set on the floor before running for help.

  “Oh, don’t be leavin’ me! Oh, please, Yer Grace, don’t be a-goin’! Herself’ll be comin’ fer me. ’Tis the devil after me soul!” O’Casey cried, crouching against the wall and rocking back and forth.

  “I must go, O’Casey,” Sabrina told her, her voice sharpening. It seemed to have a sobering effect on the nanny, for suddenly she came to her senses.

  “B-but her took him, her did! Her stole young Lord Andrew! I saw it meself! Left a changeling in his bed, I’m sure. Oh, ’tis powerful evil, and now it has the sweet lad.”

  In disbelieving horror, Sabrina stared down at the sobbing woman. She wondered if this were more gibberish, or indeed the truth. Without stopping to think about what she might come face-to-face with, Sabrina ran the rest of the way to the nursery. Once she was there, her steps faltered; one of the candles had been snuffed out, but there was still enough light to see the empty crib where her son had lain. She stood beside it and numbly stretched out her hand to feel the sticky drop of blood staining Andrew’s pillow. He was gone! There was blood on his pillow—but whose?

  On shaking legs, Sabrina hurried over to the adjacent crib, not knowing what to expect. She breathed a sigh of relief and feasted her eyes upon her peacefully sleeping daughter. Her slumber seemed undisturbed, but as Sabrina stared down at Arden’s innocent face, a drop of melted wax spilled onto the bed, drawing her attention to another dark red stain.

  More blood.

  But it was not her daughter’s, she thought thankfully as she gently examined the small, vulnerable head of blond curls. Arden mumbled something unintelligible in her sleep, then gave a contented sigh as she slipped deeper into her untroubled dreams. With clumsy fingers, Sabrina covered her daughter’s small shoulders with the soft wool coverlet, but she couldn’t help thinking that Kate had stood in this very spot only moments before. And yet her daughter had been left unharmed. But what of her son?

  Sabrina spun around. Where had Kate gone? Why had she slowed herself down by kidnapping Andrew? Then her own question was answered as she imagined the maddened hatred in Kate’s pale eyes. She easily could have been halfway across the valley by now; yet she had not run, had not chosen to leave Camareigh—at least not yet. She had come for Andrew first.

  With a last reassuring glance at her daughter, Sabrina took her first steps toward what she hoped would be a final confrontation with Lucien’s cousin Kate. And this time, when they met face-to-face, she would be less merciful with this madwoman who had stolen her son.

  Hurrying from the room, Sabrina turned in the opposite direction from whence she had come, her swiftly moving feet carrying her deeper into the south wing, away from the troop of men who were regrouping in the hall to puzzle over the whereabouts of their elusive quarry.

  Pausing indecisively at the intersection of two corridors, Sabrina noticed for the first time a trail of blood. How Kate had managed to get even this far, wounded as she was and carrying Andrew, Sabrina could only wonder about. As she took the darkened corridor to her right, a slow realization of her destination was growing within her, for her steps were carrying her to the seldom-used back stairs that opened into an inner courtyard. From there was access to one of the kitchen gardens, which had a gate opening into the grounds—the way to Kate’s freedom.

  The stairs once had been a little-known exit from Camareigh. The ancient wooden staircase was rickety, its steps half rotted away, and because of the danger it held for any unsuspecting person, Lucien had decreed them restricted. They had been boarded up for years now. And just last month it had finally been decided to have the decrepit stairs torn down and a safer staircase erected. But even the workmen had not been immune to accidents, and the chief carpenter had broken his leg as a result of his fall. They would resume working on the job at the end of the month, but until then, the old staircase still stood. And since the workers would be returning, and everyone at Camareigh knew of the danger of the south stairs, they had not bothered to board up the entrance again.

  Only a stranger to Camarei
gh would be unaware of the dangerous condition of those stairs, and in the darkness, which would hide the workmen’s scaffolding, that person would have no reason to hesitate—especially if she were in a desperate hurry.

  Sabrina quickened her steps, a dreadful foreboding gathering at the back of her mind. The knuckles of her right hand gleamed white against the taut skin as she kept a tight grip on the heavy silver candelabrum, while protecting the vulnerable flame with her cupped left hand. The corridor was bitingly cold, and since this section of the wing was left unheated, the damp had penetrated deeply into it. Few people wandered this way, except for a maid armed with a feather duster, who cleared the passage of cobwebs once a fortnight.

  Sabrina was halfway down the corridor toward the south stairs when she heard a terrified scream. She needed no soothsayer to tell her the portent of that haunting cry. For an instant later a low rumble vibrated through the hall, becoming a thundering roar and climaxing in a deafening crash. Her unfaltering steps carried her into the thick, choking dust that was settling over everything, like a dirty shroud.

  There was only one thought in Sabrina’s mind when Kate’s horror-filled voice was abruptly silenced: fear for her son. In her mind’s eye she saw the steep flight of steps leading to the flagstone floor of the courtyard. This image now made her sickeningly weak as she reached the opened door to the stairwell.

  An icy draft of air hit her, extinguishing her light and leaving her poised on the edge of the gaping hole. Sabrina stood motionless in the somber silence, her eyes seeking blindly for something familiar to grasp.

  She bit back a start of surprise when she touched the door and felt a splinter of wood dig deep into her palm. Supporting herself against the door, she carefully placed the useless candelabrum on the floor beside her feet, then leaned farther out into the blackness.