“Can we spare anyone else?”
“Not if you wish to save the house. Seaton knew what he was doing, I’ll say that for him.”
Michael looked back up the staircase praying that for once Belle would do as she was told.
***
Belle listened as the men headed down the hall to the staircase and longed to cosh all three of them over their respective heads, but this was no time for indignation. She needed to return to her room and get dressed. There could be injured to care for before this night was done. She slipped cautiously from the bed and quickly dawned her night gown and robe. Far away in the vastness of the great house she heard the sounds of an army of servants mobilizing to save the dower house. She had no doubt who’d set the fire. Her hands stilled for a moment as she knotted the tie of her robe. He would use this opportunity to try to get to her and if she knew Michael and Rafe at all, she knew they would realize the same thing soon enough. She eased the door to Michael’s private sitting room open, giving thanks that the staff kept the hinges as well oiled as they did. Wisdom would say she should lock herself in and wait for Michael’s return, but even now, after facing enemy fire and battlefield horrors, her courage failed her when it came to Seaton. She could no more sit still and trust in the security of a locked door than she could walk blindfolded into a cage holding a hungry tiger. A faint orange and yellow glow drew her to the window. Flames shot from the downstairs windows at the rear of the dower house. Belle let the window curtain fall behind her as she stood transfixed trying to take in the scene below her. Servants formed bucket lines to throw water. They appeared to be having a difficult time gaining significant ground against the flames. Belle searched for one figure in particular knowing she was too far away to clearly recognize anyone. She hoped he’d stay safe and not engage in heroics, but Michael would never stand idle when something needed to be done, blast him. He’d thumbed his nose at the Russian blockage. Why would he hesitate now? She sent up hasty prayer for Lady Stowebridge. The woman might be a the devil’s own viper, but she didn’t deserve such a horrible death.
Belle turned to step out from behind the curtain when the sound of a click coming from the room’s hidden panel froze her in place. Her heard a whispering sound as the panel moved across the surface of the carpet. Intuition made her ease back into the drapes. Then she heard it – the sound of shuffling footsteps and labored breathing. No, it wasn’t Michael or Drew. Like Rafe’s men, they would have used the main stairs and corridor. She pulled back farther into the recesses of the fabric. A soft glow emerged from the entrance to the passage, illuminating the darkness around a stooped figure. Belle fought the urge to burst from her hiding place and run into the hall. There was no telling if the person who’d entered the sitting room was truly lame, or not, if they carried a pistol, or not. She held her breath as the figure moved towards her. He would have to pass right by her hiding place. She forced herself to take small, silent breaths. Time crawled by as he drew closer one shuffling footstep at a time. Her throat tightened to the point of pain as it fought to release the scream she held back with all her might. Her back muscles cramped from fear, but she forced herself to remain absolutely still.
The smell hit her so suddenly that she almost gasped aloud. The fetid odor of infection permeated the air in the room. Belle struggled to keep breathing evenly, praying that the source of the smell wouldn’t discover her and that she would have time to escape.
The figure continued past the window heading towards Michael’s bedroom. She heard it make an impatient, growling sound and any remaining doubts she’d harbored about the prowler’s identity vanished in a single, cold wave of dread.
Belle frantically judged the distance from her shelter to the passage. She hadn’t heard the panel close, but what if she were wrong. She heard him curse and knew that all too soon he’d start upending furniture and tearing things apart in his search. She couldn’t count on Rafe’s men hearing him, or reaching her in time. Belle used a trick she’d learned as a child when eluding him. She positioned herself at the very edge of concealment and began silently counting to five. Once she reached the last number she hurled herself towards the secret panel hoping that it remained open and that she could find it unerringly in the dark room. Her luck held and she managed to slide the panel back into place sealing herself inside the passage.
Unable to pause in her flight to find and light a candle, Belle groped her way down the narrow staircase keeping one hand on the wall and sliding her feet tentatively along each step. Thankfully she’d used this passage with Michael many times during the past several weeks and her knowledge of the spacing of each step held her in good stead. How had Seaton learned about the passage way? Michael said only he and Drew knew of its existence.
Belle listened in the oppressive darkness for any hint of sound. Nothing, nor even the scurry of rodents. She considered using one of the other exits Michael had shown her along the lengthy trek downward from his chambers to his study, but if Seaton knew about the passage then he may know about the other entrances as well. Even now he could be waiting for her in Michael’s study having hurried down through the house. She should have grabbed a candle stick, or anything else that could be used as a weapon. Below her she saw the faint glow of light magnified by the blackness surrounding her. She was almost to her goal. Gaining the passage entrance, she paused. The angle of the bookcase shielded most of room from her view. Belle waited for a telltale sound, or smell – anything that might tell her if he waited in the shadows beyond the glow of the oil lamp. Nothing. She stepped cautiously from the concealment of the bookcase. The baron could be anywhere at this point. He could have a pistol. She had to find Michael. Where were Rafe’s men? She turned to push the bookcase back into the wall, sealing off the passage and never saw the blow coming until it was too late.
***
The fire proved to be more than simply a diversion staged to draw the men guarding the estate. Flames shot from the windows of the upper floors of the dower house illuminating the pre-dawn sky. Within moments the situation changed from saving the structure to preventing the fire from spreading to any of the surrounding buildings. Michael dropped the bucket he held, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he fought to catch his breath. He wiped the soot and sweat from his forehead with the back of his equally grimy hand, then glanced over to where Drew, braced upon his set of canes, organized a group of tenant farmers. His brother gave orders like a man used to command. It was a side of him Michael had never witnessed and it made him damned proud.
“The servants are accounted for, but no one has seen Lady Stowebridge,” Rafe said striding to Michael’s side. “Her maid tried to rouse her when the fire began, but the lady was not in her room.” He looked from the blaze to Michael. “No one could be alive in there now,” he said grimly.
Michael noted the sky growing lighter to the east, his stomach tightening. He feared the baron had taken her, or worse, that she’d succumbed to the smoke and never made it out of the house at all. In either case, he’d failed her. There may be no love lost between them, but she was still his mother. “The sun will be up soon,” he said flatly. “We can search the grounds and buildings more thoroughly once the fire is contained. Have everyone fall back from the house. There’s no way to save it. All we can do at this point is watch.”
Rafe left to carry out his orders and Michael turned back to watch the fire finish its destruction. Furnishings and paintings saved from the blaze littered the lawns of the dower house. These items reflected the lives of generations of Lassiters and all of it became meaningless in the face of a life lost.
Suddenly Rafe ran back to him, two men close on his heels. Michael recognized them as the men who’d been stationed to guard the main house and Belle.
“We’ve got more trouble,” Rafe told him.
***
Her head hurt, that much she knew. Belle lay quietly hoping she hadn’t made any sounds or sudden moves as she’d regained consciousness. She opened her e
yes to mere slits trying to gauge her situation. A whiff of the same fetid odor she’d smelled upstairs assailed her and she fought the panic threatening to close her throat and leave her gasping for air. There were voices – two of them, a man and a woman. As her head cleared she recognized Lady Stowebridge voice. She knew the other voice in an instant. Five years or five hundred and she’d know the tones and pitch of it because that voice still haunted her nightmares.
Lady Stowebridge’s voice was raised in anger. Belle silently urged her to use prudence. The woman had no idea what kind of monster had them at his mercy. He’d been unhinged five years ago and if the cause of the smell was, as Belle suspected, the French Pox, as it was often called, the disease had hastened Seaton’s descent into madness. He would kill them in an instant should either of them anger him. She felt a wetness behind her ear and knew his blow had drawn blood. She thanked God it had done little more than that.
“You were supposed to take care of her upstairs. What did you expect me to do?” The other woman’s words registered and Belle realized with a flash of chilling insight that not only had it been Lady Stowebridge who’d struck her, but that the woman was aiding Seaton against both of her sons. “I had to stop her somehow. You were of no help to me!” The countess’ words held a shrill, nasal quality and Belle wondered if the baron found it as irritating as Belle, herself, did. There was sound of a loud slap and Lady Stowebridge shrieked in outrage. Apparently he did.
“Shut your mouth, or I’ll skin you like the sow you are,” he said, his tone reasonable as if he were commenting on a worn seam on his gloves. The woman wisely held her tongue. Belle heard him move to the window and heard the sound of ripping. “I have to tie her before she comes round. I still have work to do and I can’t have my girl interfering with me,” he muttered, more to himself than to anyone else. “No, I can’t have that. I have to keep her tucked safely out of the way, don’t I?”
“I don’t care what you do with the creature,” Lady Stowebridge exclaimed, “as long as you keep your hands off me and off Drew! That’s the bargain we struck and I demand you honor it!”
Ominously, the sound of ripping, of any movement coming from Seaton abruptly stopped. As much as Belle wanted to spring up and run for the door she held her position, praying that the countess’s stupidity wouldn’t bring about her own death. The woman might be vain and vicious, but that didn’t mean Belle wanted her harmed. Let justice deal with her, not Seaton. Belle opened her eyes hoping that the other occupants of the room would be too distracted to notice. Her luck held. She’d fallen to the side of the settee, her head turned away from both of them. Belle’s eyes strained in the darkness searching for anything that might be used as a weapon. A long, thin object lay just out of her reach. The fireplace poker – that’s what the woman had used to strike her. Thankfully the countess’s swing had lacked enough force to inflict serious harm, merely stunning Belle for several crucial moments. The poker would serve them much better in Belle’s hands.
“Touch you? Oh, no,” the baron said, mild amusement lacing his tone, “a bargain is a bargain, Madam, and I wouldn’t soil my hands with you or your sons.” Belle heard the snap of something being quickly and sharply pulled between a pair of hands. The drapery cords that tied back the curtains. She’d seen him do it before and suddenly she was fifteen again, cowering as he prepared to use the same item to whip her back through her dress. She hadn’t been grateful enough for the music box he’d given her for her birthday. He’d determined that she’d needed a lesson that day, just as he determined Lady Stowebridge needed one now.
The woman began to understand her own peril and Belle heard her stumble, knocking into a table. She saw the countess’s backward movements clearly in her minds eye because at one time or another, Belle herself had moved the very same way trying to avoid him. It hadn’t worked for her then and it wouldn’t work for the countess now. She was an older woman and even though Seaton was older too, as well as sick, her strength would be no match for the baron’s. Belle forced herself to lie immobile, praying that Lady Stowebridge continued backing towards the door taking the baron with her. The only chance either of them had was for Belle to seize the poker and defend them both.
“You gave me your word,” Lady Stowebridge whimpered. “You promised to take her away and leave my Andrew alone if I helped you, if I gave you money.”
Seaton laughed hoarsely. “Such a protective mother, so loving. Tell me, why are you so willing to sacrifice one son to save the other? You didn’t simply offer your help to save your younger son, you also offered me money to kill the older one. You really are an evil old bitch, aren’t you?” Snap, the cords went taut again. He was playing with her, claiming his power over her before he struck. That much hadn’t changed. It was almost time for Belle to make her move. Regardless of what she felt for the other woman she couldn’t allow the baron to kill her. They both were across the room now, the baron’s back firmly towards Belle.
The room had grown a little lighter from the approaching sunrise. Belle inched her nightgown away from her feet and rolled into a sitting position trusting that Lady Stowebridge would be too frightened to notice. She picked up the poker to steady herself as she rose, her head swimming a little from the blow she’d received. Belle tucked the poker against the side of her robe using the folds of fabric to conceal it.
“If Michael is dead Drew becomes the Earl of Stowebridge. Then her ladyship becomes not only mother of a war hero, but of an earl who will let her have her way in all things, or so she believes,” Belle called out sharply. The baron snapped his head towards her and in the faint glow of the lamp she saw his disease ravaged features and gasped.
“There’s my puss,” the baron crooned. He turned his head back to Lady Stowebridge and brought up the cord stretched between his hands. “Did you have a nice nap? Pardon me while I finish tidying up.” The countess, seeing her death facing her, whimpered again as she cowered away from him.
“You asked a question, Seaton, remember?” Belle said, hoping she didn’t sound too frantic in her attempt to distract him. “You deserve an answer. She owes you one.” She gambled that even with his disintegrating mind he would still operate from a notion of his own self-importance.
He nodded. “Yes, the sow owes me an explanation.”
Belle licked her dry lips. She had to stall him and if it gained her some answers for Michael and Drew’s sakes then so much the better. “I can give you your answer. I’ve been working it out for you. Her ladyship wants Michael dead because he saw what she did to Drew all those years ago and now she’s afraid that one day very soon he’ll put all the pieces together.” She risked looking at the countess for a moment, letting her contempt for the woman show clearly on her face. “You made Drew ill when he was a small child, didn’t you?”
“You don’t know what you’re saying!” the other woman cried. “You’re as mad as he is!” The baron calmly struck the countess across her cheek with the cord, breaking her skin. She howled in pain. “Help me,” she pleaded. Belle wished she could offer her some assurance, but for now it was imperative that the baron believe Belle intended to aid him rather than provide a rescue.
“Michael didn’t understand what he saw that day in the nursery, but he does now. He realized tonight that from the time his brother was an infant you created his illnesses for attention – as a means of punishing and controlling your straying husband. That’s why you’ve hated Michael. You feared him. You feared him so much that you drove wedges between him and his brothers.” Belle saw the truth of her words in Lady Stowebridge’s expression. The other woman shook her head frantically. “You made certain that society viewed you as the long-suffering mother of a wastrel, fueling the gossip that gave you the attention you craved and that alienated a father from his son. It was you who insisted your husband exile Michael for the scandal, wasn’t it?” Much of what Belle said was speculation, but Lady Stowebridge remained silent, not defending herself against Belle’s accusations, her fa
ce twisting in desperation.
“You drove Michael out of his own family, made anything he said suspect so that if and when he did understand the significance of yourlittle bottle, no one would believe him, in fact, they might even think that he was the culprit himself,” Belle declared, edging her way forward to come within striking distance of the baron. “Then Drew began to recover once Michael sent you away and you knew he’d figure out what you’d done and hate you for it.
The baron chuckled, “Well done, puss. You’d do the Metropolitan Police proud.”
“Not really,” she said softly. “Life simply provided me the opportunity to study herbs, harmful ones as well as beneficial ones. It was staring me in the face my first day here,” she said, gesturing toward the fiery, red and green plant on the stand by Michael’s desk. “Jerusalem Cherry,solanum pseudocapsicum, a member of the nightshade family. It’s lovely to look at, but it can be quite lethal causing weakness, nausea, vomiting – even heart and respiratory problems if ingested. Crumbling a few leaves into his ‘Tonic Tea’ made Drew alarmingly ill. You drove Michael away during Drew’s recovering so you could keep him sick and dependent upon you. It was irresistible to play the devoted mother of a war hero – all the attention, the sympathy from your friends. No one could overlook you, or shunt you to the side this time. Michael wasn’t around to protect his brother and Drew no longer cared enough about living to protect himself.”
Lady Stowebridge gave a keening cry and slid to the floor, her arms folding protectively over her head. The baron kicked her. It was no doubt painful, but he’d done it more to include himself than for any other reason. He bent down to loop the cord around her neck and Belle brought the poker crashing down on him. He shrieked and turned on her.
Belle stepped back and swung the poker again, past fear, past the agony of her memories –memories of her mother cringing and pleading with him to stop striking her only to have him yank her up by the hair and bury his fist in her stomach, of her own broken ribs and collar bone. He raised his arm to protect himself, but Belle managed to land a strong third blow on his shoulder before he attacked her trying to wrench the poker from her hands. Even weakened as he was with illness he still had more strength than her, but this time...this time she would go down fighting.
A Terrible Beauty (Season of the Furies Book 1) Page 41