Pierre was still fast asleep – I need not have been concerned that he would wake during the night.
I think I must have dozed a little again, for the click of the door opening made me start violently. It was Clara, come to light the fire. She must have been as startled to find the parlour occupied as I was by her sudden appearance, for she stood in the doorway clutching the basket of logs to her chest as if her life depended upon it, her mouth agape.
‘Oh, Miss Flora!’
Now that the staff were up and about, they would have to be told something, I realized.
‘Leave that for a moment, Clara,’ I said quietly, so as not to disturb Pierre. ‘Come to the kitchen. I need to talk to you and the others.’
She set down the logs, staring all the while at the small figure on the chaise, then did as I bid.
In the kitchen I gathered the staff together, and told them as much as they needed to know.
‘We have a visitor – though perhaps visitor is not quite the right word, since he will be living here from now on. He is eight years old, and he has come from France, where he was in great danger.’ I paused, knowing what I said next was bound to come as something of a shock to them. ‘His name is Pierre, and he is Mr Louis’ son.’
Their eyes were wide, but for a moment none of them spoke. Then Cook said: ‘Her son, you mean. Miss Lisette’s.’ She did not trouble to disguise the scorn in her voice. So she had known Lisette, and had little time for her, I guessed.
‘And Mr Louis’,’ I said firmly. ‘Pierre has had a terrible time, I understand, and I expect you all to treat him with kindness and respect. Do you understand?’
They nodded, saying not another word. They knew their place, of course – though I was sure they would begin to chatter and speculate the moment my back was turned.
‘I don’t want this mentioned outside of the house,’ I went on. ‘When Mr Louis comes home he will no doubt introduce Pierre into society, and there will be no more need for discretion. But for the moment it is to remain within these four walls. If it becomes common knowledge in the district I shall know that it came from one of you, and whoever is responsible will be dismissed with no reference.’
I did not like speaking to them in such a manner; my own roots were too close to theirs for me to be comfortable issuing orders, let alone threats of dismissal. And I knew too that what I had said was not strictly true; there were bound to be others who would learn of Pierre’s presence at Belvedere and perhaps talk about it. But with Louis in such a perilous position, I had to do my best.
‘When Pierre wakes, I’m sure he’d like a cup of hot chocolate,’ I went on. ‘And I’d rather like one myself. Could you make it for me, please, Cook? And one for Miss Antoinette, too.’
When the chocolates were ready, I carried them up to Antoinette’s room. I found her awake and already dressed.
‘Flora – what are you doing here? I was just going out to see Misty!’
I set the cup down on her little table. ‘Drink this first. And I’ll have mine with you. I have something to tell you, Antoinette.’
‘What?’ She looked alarmed suddenly. ‘It’s not Papa, is it?’
It crossed my mind to wonder if she knew more than I thought of Louis’ expeditions to France, and had done all along.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Well, not directly. It’s about your brother, Pierre. He’s here.’
* * *
To her credit, Antoinette took the news well. I had been afraid that for all that she had seemingly prepared herself, the reality might be different. But she reacted with excitement and impatience to meet the sibling of whose existence she had known nothing until a few days ago.
She went down to the parlour and sat with the still sleeping Pierre whilst I freshened up and changed my gown, which was creased to little better than a rag. When he woke a little later, she took him to breakfast, and though I felt awkward and strained with the little boy, brother and sister struck up an easy rapport as, I suppose, only the young can do. I was more than happy to let them go off to the stables together, where Antoinette could not wait to introduce Misty to her new-found brother, for I was both weary and anxious, my nerves stretched to breaking point.
I did not see Gavin come riding up the drive, or I would have attempted to intercept him. The first I knew that he had returned home was when he came storming into the guest room where I was attempting to make things welcoming for a young boy who had lost his home as I had lost mine.
‘What in the name of all that’s holy is going on?’ he demanded. His usually genial expression had been replaced by one of utter fury, his handsome features almost ugly with the rage that was possessing him. ‘I found Antoinette in the stables with a strange boy she says you told her is her brother! What game are you playing, Flora?’
‘No game,’ I said steadily. ‘Pierre is indeed her brother – Louis’ and Lisette’s son. He arrived very late last night, sent to safety by Louis.’
‘Louis’ and Lisette’s son?’ Gavin brought his fist down hard on the dressing chest. ‘I don’t believe it! If Louis and Lisette have a son, how is it I have never heard of it?’
I was startled – and puzzled. ‘Louis did not tell you?’
‘Indeed he did not! He has never so much as made mention of this boy.’
I was, I admit it, a little surprised, since he had acquainted Antoinette with the facts, and I could not think why he should not have told Gavin also. And I was surprised Antoinette herself had said nothing about it to Gavin. Her father must have expressly told her not to, I assumed, for she had talked of it to me quite freely.
‘I believe he only recently learned of Pierre’s existence,’ I said, trying to assuage Gavin’s obvious fury. It had no effect.
‘How dare he bring the little bastard here!’ Gavin struck the dressing chest again with such force that all the china pots jumped and clanked.
‘He is not a bastard,’ I said. ‘He is Louis’ son.’
‘Who is set to inherit what is rightfully mine, if it is indeed true!’ Gavin stormed. ‘Faith, I never bargained for that!’
I knew then why he was so angry. He had believed that if Louis predeceased him, Belvedere and the whole of the Fletcher estate would be his. Now an eight-year-old boy stood between him and his aspirations. Louis’ son. Louis’ heir.
‘I won’t allow it!’ Gavin’s voice was lower now, but vibrant with passion. ‘I will not allow a snivel-nosed boy to rob me of my inheritance!’
‘How can you be so uncharitable as to concern yourself with nothing but material gain when the child is so much in need of all our support?’ I asked coldly. ‘Surely his welfare is what is important now. As for the matter of inheritance, the law is the law, so you might as well accept it with good grace.’
‘Never! I’ll find a way to make sure that brat does not make mock of all my plans, have no fear on that score!’
He turned on his heel and strode from the room.
* * *
The encounter with Gavin not only shocked me, it made me deeply uneasy. Beneath that genial exterior, his passions ran deep, I knew, and when he had beaten John, the gamekeeper’s boy, so mercilessly, I had witnessed a streak of violence that came close to sadism besides. I took some comfort in reiterating to myself what I had said to Gavin – the law was the law, and however disappointed he might be, nothing could change that. But the unpleasant situation was just another reason for me to pray that Louis would soon return safely. He would take care of everything, and if he deemed it best he would no doubt ban Gavin from the house entirely.
To my surprise, however, Gavin seemed to overcome his filthy humour and his resentment quite quickly. In no time at all, he appeared to be making every effort to befriend Pierre, spending a good deal of time with him and Antoinette. The little boy was every bit as enchanted with Misty, the foal, as she was, and was an accomplished rider, so he was quite capable of handling one of the horses that was big enough to bear his weight, which Misty was not, and the three of them went out
often for a canter on the moors.
On the one hand, I was glad of it, for I was so preoccupied with my concern for Louis that I felt incapable of holding a conversation, let alone entertaining a young boy, and the excursions were good for him, I felt, helping him to feel at home, and to take his mind off his recent experiences and his worries for his mother’s safety. But my disquiet remained, all the same, for I did not entirely trust Gavin, though I told myself that the threats he had made had been born of his rage and disappointment at learning the inheritance had slipped from his grasp. And I did not feel it was my place to interfere, either, with Gavin’s efforts to establish a relationship. He was, after all, the boy’s uncle, and Pierre himself seemed glad of the male company, and attached himself like a limpet to Gavin.
Two or three days passed, and with each one I grew more anxious for news. Surely by now Louis would have had time to trace Lisette? Surely any day now he would be taking her to where his ship awaited? I counted off the hours and tried to put from my mind the ever-present dread that he might fall into the hands of the Revolutionaries. But my fears refused to be dismissed, however hard I tried, and more than once I woke, bathed in perspiration, from the most terrible nightmares when I saw Louis in a fetid prison cell, Louis in a tumbril, Louis with his neck on the guillotine.
On the evening of the fourth day I heard a horse on the drive. I was alone in the parlour – Antoinette and Pierre had retired to her rooms to play a game of draughts – and Gavin, who had eaten supper with us, had gone out, I knew not where.
I ran to the window, drawing aside the drapes and peering out, but the night was black, and I could see nothing – the horse had gone around the house to the stable block I thought. My heart was beating in my chest like a trapped bird. Could it be Louis? Oh please, dear sweet Jesus, let it be Louis!
I could wait no longer to find out. I hurried out through the back entrance, avoiding the kitchen, where I knew Cook and the maids would still be clearing away the supper things.
It was a cold night with a sharp blustery wind, and I had not waited to fetch a wrap, but I scarcely noticed the chill as my slippered feet flew me across the yard. A horse was tethered outside the stable, but of its rider there was no sign.
For the first time it occurred to me that I was taking a risk coming out alone into the darkness. But I could not go tamely back inside until I had learned who it was who had come galloping up the drive. I did go a little more cautiously and quietly though, every sense alert.
Voices were coming from within the stable and I recognized one as Gavin’s. Nothing strange about that, of course – either he had ridden out and returned with a friend, or he had been in the stables all the time.
No, it was the other voice that turned my blood to ice and made me shiver though the cold of the night had not. A voice that transported me back to the night my father had been murdered.
If I had been asked whether I would know again the voice I had heard when I crept down the stairs, I would have replied that I would not. I had heard it for a few brief moments only; rough, with a local accent. Yet now, quite suddenly, I was in no doubt whatever.
The voice coming from inside the stables belonged to one of the men who had brought death to my father that terrible night. And he was here, now, with Gavin.
Fifteen
For a moment I was frozen with utter horror. One of my father’s killers was here, within a few feet of me. Worse, he was talking with Gavin, as he had talked with my father. Was history about to repeat itself? Was Gavin about to meet the same awful death? I leaned against the cold stone of the stable wall to steady myself, for my legs had turned weak beneath me, and a sickness was rising in my stomach. Then Gavin spoke again, and I realized that this was no argument such as I had overheard before, but some kind of business meeting.
‘You understand me?’ Gavin’s tone was authoritative. ‘You know what you have to do?’
‘Oh, I understand you all right.’ It was the man from Tucker’s Grave speaking. ‘But what you’re asking this time is different – and a sight more dangerous. You’ll have to pay a great deal more for our help this time.’
I froze, listening.
‘I’ve always been more than generous,’ I heard Gavin say. ‘You earn more from me than you’d get in a year working on the land – if you can find any landowner willing to employ you, that is. And you have no scruples about killing. You have the blood of the landlord of Tucker’s Grave on your hands.’
So – I had been right! This was indeed the man who had been responsible for my father’s death. But Gavin had known who he was all along – worse, the murderer had been in his pay!
A wave of faintness threatened me; I hung on to the wall, determined to learn the truth behind all this, and heard the man reply sullenly: ‘That were different. We had no choice. The fool wouldn’t listen to reason – tried to take a gun to us. Should we have stood there and let him shoot us? Any man would have done what we done that night. But this – this would be in cold blood. Oh, you’ll have to pay a great deal more than you’re offering for that, Mr Gavin, sir.’
‘You would do well,’ Gavin said silkily, ‘to remember that I saved your skin less than a week ago when you were careless enough to take your horse to public market. I thought, when I let you know the beast had been recognized, that you would have had the sense to get rid of him much further afield, not to a dealer who frequents the local fairs. And talking of killing, did you not dispose of the vagrant who first recognized the horse? That was nicely done, I grant you, and accepted as an accident. But it was still murder, and we both know it. Two killings at the very least that can be laid at your door. If you turn your back on me now, Tench, I can’t promise you I shall not go to the constable and tell him what I know.’
‘Don’t you threaten me!’ the man, Tench, growled furiously. ‘I’m not a one to take threats lightly.’
‘And I am not one to be thwarted, Tench,’ Gavin returned tersely. ‘You know damned well that without my patronage your wife and children will go hungry – starve to death next winter, as like as not, if they don’t die of the cold first. All right, I’ll up my offer – double it, if that’s what it takes. And there’ll be a decent new cottage for you when I inherit.’
The man, Tench, snorted loudly. ‘And when will that be, I’d like to know? Mr Louis looks in rude good health to me.’
‘You think so?’ Gavin’s voice was cold and hard. ‘Mr Louis is in France, on what will prove to be the last of his reckless expeditions. At last I am in possession of the information I required as regards his movements – no thanks to you. I have succeeded, Tench, where you failed, and this time the Revolutionaries will catch up with him in the most incriminating of circumstances. He will be caught, as the saying goes, red-handed. I think you may take my word for it, Mr Louis will not be returning.’
I clapped my hand to my mouth, rigid with shock and horror as the full, inescapable truth dawned on me.
It was Gavin, his own brother, who had secretly worked against Louis all along. Gavin who had seen an opportunity to get his hands on the only thing that mattered to him in all the world – the inheritance. Gavin who had sought the means to betray him. My father had indeed died because he worked for the Brotherhood of the Lynx and his life had been snuffed out because he had either remained stubbornly silent, or refused to do whatever it was Gavin’s accomplices had asked him to do. For a while Gavin had been thwarted. Now, from what he had just said, it seemed he had learned enough to set the Revolutionaries on to Louis. But how? How…?
And then, in a flash, I knew. I had thought it was strange that Gavin should behave in such a friendly fashion towards Pierre, given his furious reaction when the little boy had first arrived. Now, I knew the reason. He had befriended him and gained his confidence in order to elicit the one fact that could set the Revolutionaries on to Louis’ tail – the whereabouts of his mother, Lisette. If they knew that, they could watch and wait, set a trap. And into it would walk the man th
ey wanted so desperately, the man who had made fools of them over and over again by smuggling out their prisoners from under their very noses. The Lynx himself.
Tench’s rough voice cut into my racing thoughts.
‘You’re a cool one, Mr Gavin, sir, and a hard one! I never before met a man who’d pay for the death of his own flesh and blood. But I can’t afford to quibble over who I deal with. Pay me double your offer and guarantee me a good cottage before the end of the year… I’ll do what you ask. Seeing as what you stand to inherit, and what you’re asking me to do, it’s cheap at the price. A child’s a child… even if he is a French bastard…’
My eyes widened in horror. Pierre! Oh no – it couldn’t be Pierre whose death Gavin was soliciting! But, shocked as I was, I could not deny the evidence of my own ears. Not only had Gavin betrayed Louis, now he was plotting to see that Pierre, who stood between him and his inheritance, should perish also.
‘It seems you’re squeamish, Tench,’ Gavin was saying. ‘You’d kill a full-grown man but not a brat, would you? I’m not sure I can trust you to do the job. Methinks I’d be better off doing it myself. Now I come to think of it, I’ve every opportunity for making it look like an accident. Who would suspect the boy’s kindly uncle was the cause of his death? And I’d save myself a good deal of money into the bargain.’
‘D’you want me to do the job or not?’ Tench asked impatiently.
There was something that might almost have been a smile in Gavin’s voice.
‘Whichever of us gets to him first, Tench. Whichever of us gets to him first.’
* * *
Somehow I prised myself away from the wall. Somehow I forced my trembling legs to carry me back across the stable yard and into the house. Up the stairs to my room I ran; there I closed the door and stood with my back pressed against it and my hands pressed to my mouth. And all the while the terrible conversation I had overheard played and replayed itself in my mind. I could scarcely believe it, and yet it all made perfect sense, like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. And the key was Gavin and his insane desire to be master of Belvedere. His ambition had driven him to betray his own brother, and now, faced with an heir who stood to inherit all he desired, he was preparing to do away with him too.
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