"Well, what the hell's the problem?" Jacob asked. "You're actin' like a Puritan lad on his weddin' day."
"I don't know how to tell this is all. It's bad, real bad." He finally looked at Justin. "It has to do with your Christina."
"Is she all right?" Justin rose with the question.
"Oh aye. She's fine, just fine. But well, we's—Miles and me—we followed the bastards out to your house."
"My house?" Justin did not expect this.
"Aye and we waited and watched like ye said. 'Twas your Christina that met with them. She walked right out of the house just at night fall, when 'twas all dark, and met them on the lawn. I couldn' get close enough to hear it all but I heard enough. Enough to know 'twas not good, not good a'tall."
Justin stood now, with his fists resting on the table, searching the man with incomprehension. "You saw Christina meet with the French agents?"
Steffen nodded.
"Spell it out, Steffen."
"Like I said, I couldn' hear it all. Dr. Morrison was mentioned. I didn' get that part. Logbooks were mentioned and a letter—correspondence to England. Then they planned to meet at the oak tree in town. Couldn' hear when, though. That was it." He paused and shifted nervously, signaling the worst was over. "She went back to the house. We followed the bastards down the road a few miles where they're holed up. We couldn't figure why but they seemed bent on staying, so I left Miles watching them and I came here straight up."
Justin stared hard for a long moment before his questions began. "What did she say to the man?"
"Don't know. Couldn' hear her hardly at all, not with her soft voice."
"How was Dr. Morrison mentioned?"
"Don't know. Somethin' about him being her friend is all."
"Who mentioned the letter?"
"He did. Said to bring it to him."
Several more questions were asked. Steffen repeated the story twice. Sitting mute throughout, Jacob watched Justin finally turn to face the window. The silence was deafening; the click of his cup as he set it slowly to the saucer sounded like a bang of pots. And Jacob realized quite suddenly he had not drawn a breath.
"There is a mistake here," Justin finally said, but much too slowly. His mind was blocked by emotions. He could not think through the situation, though he struggled for long minutes to do just that. All he knew was "There is a mistake here. Christina would not do that, I know—" He turned in sudden fear to Jacob. "Come on." He rushed to the door. "I want those men."
* * * * *
Christina waited in the parlor. She nibbled from an apple-and-cheese tray Hope had just brought her, watching as the hands of the clock signaled half past one. Rosarn was taking a very long time about it.
When the noon hour struck and there was still no word from Justin, she had sent Rosarn to the Johnson's house with a note asking if she might have use of a driver to take her into town. She explained it was an emergency, that Justin had dismissed the servants for a holiday—this was not unheard of—and that she had to get to town that day.
She could not fathom why Chessy had not told Justin to send someone back to escort her. Perhaps he forgot to mention that there was no one here to bring her into town. But hadn't she mentioned it in her letter? And then, too, Chessy had been so concerned about the issue...
"I'll just bet Rosarn is dallying with Jane," she complained to no one, unless one counted little Justin playing on the floor. Jane was one of the Johnsons' maids and Rosarn's dearest friend, save Aggie. "She's probably telling Jane everything and Jane will tell somebody else, who will tell somebody else and so on until finally it gets back to Mrs. Johnson and by then the story will be all twisted and silly and outrageous and oh!" she said as she got up yet eager to look out the window. "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"
The Johnsons' carriage finally turned down the lane. Christina swung on her cloak, lifted Justin to her arms, and picked up her bag, a bag filled with a change of clothes for little Justin, an evening gown for herself, a brush, toilet water, a small present for Hanna, and the letter, and headed out the door.
Raymond, the driver, was a pleasant older fellow. As he swung down from the driver's seat, he told her the Johnsons were glad to lend his services, and then lied as his mistress told him to do. "No problem." He grinned magnanimously. "I was just headin' into town anyway."
"How lucky for me!" Christina smiled in turn, knowing this for what it was, a neighbor's white lie. She liked the Johnsons and thought to send one of Hope's apple pies over with a sweet note as soon as she got back. Hope loved to share her cooking, especially her apple pie, while she hoped to counterbalance the gossip with her good deed.
As Raymond helped her inside, he told her Rosarn planned to pass the afternoon, and probably the evening too, with her friend Jane. "Is that all right?"
"There's no one left here anyway and we should be gone for days."
The old man smiled, told her to knock on the side should she want to stop, and then shut the door. He climbed up onto the seat and slashed the whip on the horse's back. The carriage bolted forward and they were off.
* * * * *
Justin motioned silently for the other five men to turn back around and cover the three French agents from the other side then he, Jacob, and Steffen dismounted. "There they be," Steffen whispered as he looked around the thick forest for Miles, "but I don't see Miles anywhere and I left him right here— Look, there's our tracks." He pointed to the broken twigs at their feet, the imprint of horses' hooves.
"He probably left for town too," Jacob whispered into the silence of the forest. They waited for the men to circle the three French agents. Jacob would signal with his famous crow call when they should move. "It looks like they're waiting for something, all mounted, staring up the road like that, don't it?"
Justin said nothing. He was thinking ahead to the questions he would ask and the answers he would hear. He refused to confront his fear of those answers. He held the reins of his mount tight. Bursts of moist fog came from the horse's nostrils, this despite the mid-afternoon sun in the cloudless sky. A broken promise of spring, the day still held a winter's chill, and wearing a suede and sheepskin vest over a heavy cotton shirt and for one of the first times in his life, Justin was acutely conscious of the cold.
The sound of a carriage approaching was heard by all. "Ah," Petiers laughed, his voice carrying eerily through the silence of the forest, "here she comes now. A little late but..."
Here she comes—echoed in Justin's mind over and over. He choked back a loud "No," starting forward to stop what would happen, but Jacob caught his arm in a fierce grip and their eyes locked. "You've got to see it, Justin. You've got to know for sure."
Justin stared into Jacob's fine blue eyes, seeing only Jacob's pain, a pain he knew was for him. He wanted to yell it wasn't true, there was a mistake—somehow, someone would explain what was happening. Instead he fixed his eyes ahead.
Christina was lost to a game of teaching her son his numbers, thinking he could learn one and two as easily as mother and father. Little Justin thought the point of this game was to catch her fingers, which was boring, far too easy to be fun, and he decided instead to reach for the ropes of hair wrapped around his mother's head. He lunged for the target and fell hard against her just as the carriage came to a halt. Voices sounded from outside and he felt his mother tense.
Raymond eyed the three nicely dressed gents who stopped him on the road, at first unalarmed. He was smiling.
"We'd like to speak to your lady." One fellow smiled back pleasantly, and before Raymond could respond, two of the men went to one side while the first man brought his mount to the other. Raymond suffered a moment's uncertainty, and just to be safe, he stood up and lifted the seat to get his hands on the pistol he kept there.
Closed against the chilly air, the shutters were suddenly lifted from the outside and Christina gasped as she looked at the two unfamiliar faces on the one side and the one familiar face on the other. She pulled Justin tight against herself.
"The
letter, madame" was all he said.
"What letter? What do you want? I—"
"Do not," he warned, "make me draw a pistol. Your driver has just reached for his and he will go first." He looked at little Justin, who was staring back in confusion, not liking this man's goatee, his sudden appearance, or his mother's fear of him. The little boy reached out to sock his face and Petiers, smiling, caught the small hand in his. "Your boy will be the second."
Christina stared in a moment's horror.
"Your son, madame."
She reached slowly into her bag.
No one could hear what was being said but all knew it was Christina in the carriage. Justin had caught a brief glimpse of that red-gold hair just before the man pulled his mount to the side and blocked the view. He desperately struggled to explain why Christina was using the Johnson carriage and driver rather than theirs and Chessy. There seemed only one explanation, an explanation he could not face.
She could not ask Chessy to participate in this treachery.
He could not face it until the very moment the small hand reached through the window, holding the letter out to the man. Reality crashed into his mind like a blinding white light of pain. She might have just shot him point-blank in the head, not once but a thousand times.
Jacob signaled loud and clear and, with a surprising charge, seven men with drawn pistols quickly surrounded the carriage and the three mounted agents. There was a smattering of horses' hooves, shots and cries, as the three men fought for some balance to aim their own quickly drawn pistols. A shot fired, then another and another and two men fell dead. Christina screamed and fell to the floor, covering Justin with her body. Shocked, Raymond stood like a marble monument to Lot's wife, frozen, not knowing who to shoot until he saw Justin, the last to emerge from the forest.
Petiers fell from his mount onto the lifeless body of Robert, feet away from his other man. "You killed them! You—oh, my God!" He burst into tears of rage. "My men—"
Seven pistols aimed at one man.
Overwhelmed by the sight of the two dead bodies of his men and his own crashing defeat, Petiers slowly stood up. Crazed with madness, he did not hear Jacob's demand to drop his weapon. The demand was repeated but all he saw was Justin Phillips and to this target he raised his pistol and aimed with trembling hands.
Seven shots fired in close succession and Petiers too fell dead on the road.
Christina's body jerked with the thunderous explosion. Little Justin could not grasp the point of this game. The floor of the carriage was hard, his mother's body stifling, the noise hurt, and the smell of smoke, mixed with his first scent of blood and death, all brought an unearthly wail. He wanted up! Christina could not move, would not move, not for her life, not even after the silence told her it was over. There was no thought except that her child was in danger.
"Drag the bodies to the gravedigger. The paupers' lot for them." Jacob snapped orders to the men. After staring blankly at the torn and bleeding mess that had been Petiers, Raymond found himself quite sick, and Jacob waited until the bodies were removed to ask, "Did you have anything to do with this?"
"No sir! No sir!" Raymond was a rush of words. "My mistress just tells me to drive the lady to town and I do that. I pick her up and head down the road and then, then these three men stop me and say they want to speak to the lady. Well, I didn't know and so I drew my own pistol and—"
"All right." Jacob stopped him. He looked at the carriage, then at Justin.
A small voice came from inside.
"Jacob? Jacob! Is that you? Is it over?"
The soft voice affected Justin like a whip cracking in the air. His gaze shot to Jacob for help. No help could be given, not in heaven or on earth and Justin suddenly kicked spurs hard into his mount's side. The fine stallion leaped into the air, horse and rider swallowed by the forest.
Jacob turned back to Raymond. "Take her back to the house. You two." He pointed to the two men. "See that she gets there and stays there."
Christina could not comprehend why, if the danger was over, no one was coming to her. After hearing Jacob speak to Raymond and sensing the danger over, she had lifted Justin to her arms to quiet him. Cautiously, she raised her head through the open shutter. For a brief moment she met Jacob's eyes and that one look frightened her to the depth of her soul.
"Move it!" Jacob suddenly shouted at Raymond, and almost instantly the carriage jerked into motion. The old man brought the carriage around and then pressed the horses to a fast pace. Christina looked back to see Jacob sitting on his mount, staring after her with the same frightening look.
"Jacob! Jacob? What happened?"
Jacob couldn't hear her but would not have answered even if he had. When the carriage and its escort were out of sight, he retrieved the letter from the road, mounted again, and turned his horse to the direction Justin took. A direction that led, he knew, to a certain hell.
* * * * *
Christina paced in front of the mantel in her own bedchambers. Little Justin was asleep in the nursery. The servants had been called back. Yet no one had come to her to explain. No one had explained why her door was locked.
And where, oh where was Justin?
After creating a hundred and one unlikely explanations for the locked door, she plopped into a chair and forced herself to face the unimaginable. She went through the events piece by piece. Jacob and his men rescued her at the exact moment she handed the letter to that man. How did they know where to find the agents? The answer came immediately. Justin had men following them; there was no other explanation. For how long? Had they seen the French agents accost her on the walk?
No, she realized. Surely Justin's men would have come forth to save her. Wouldn't they? But if they hadn't? Her thoughts traveled over the conversation from the point of view of someone watching from a distance. Her heart started pounding and she jumped up as she began to grasp what had happened.
Chessy brought her note to Justin. But his men, Jacob included, knew nothing of it. They had witnessed the interaction between herself and the agents, one in which she pretended willingness to betray her husband. And the—
"Oh no, they couldn't have thought—" she said out loud and stopped, suddenly seeing how it might have looked when she handed the letter to that man, especially if one had not heard his threat to fire a pistol at her son.
Jacob... that explained everything! He thought her in compliance with the agents. Oh! How could he?
Just as she felt a burst of furious indignation, she remembered. The letter, madame. The letter, madame. The letter, madame. The French agent knew of the letter she carried and he knew because he had gotten her note from Chessy. Justin never received her note and, oh God, was Chessy killed?
He must be dead! Poor sweet Chessy! If he were still alive he would have told everyone of the mistake! The awful mistake! Someone must be sent to look for Chessy!
She rushed to the door and began pounding, calling for help.
* * * * *
Downstairs, lying on a sofa in darkness, Justin listened to her cries. For a while the noise drowned out his thoughts and for this he was glad. He poured the last of the brandy bottle into his glass and drained it whole.
After trying to stifle the violence of his emotions, a violence he had tried to quench by running seven miles to dive into a lake of near freezing temperature, swim for nearly an hour until the numbness in his limbs threatened to drown him, and all this finished with two bottles of potent brandy, he lay in the darkened study remembering. Remembering every detail of each of a thousand memories he had of her. He was trying to see them from a different perspective, her perspective, a perspective born of the intent to deceive.
He could not do this. He tried over and over but the memories spun clear in his mind. That shy smile, the sweet music of her laughter, the welcome of her small body to his touch. Christina laughing with his son. These could not have been a facade. Sometime, somewhere in the midst of their time together, she had loved him.
The trouble was he had seen that smile and heard her laughter, he had even owned her passion in the last two weeks. This, when she was planning to do something that could have seen him hanged. Rationally this made no sense. How could she have done this? To do it, she could not just be malevolent and cruel, but sick of mind. Sick in a way other people named evil.
Christina and evil...
"No" came in a rush of emotion that brought him to his feet, throwing his emptied glass into the fireplace. The violence brought a tumble of confused thoughts. She had done this—he had seen it with his own eyes—yet she couldn't have. She couldn't have!
Richard was mentioned. Did they threaten her with exposing Richard? Would she trade Richard's reputation for his very life?
He set up suddenly and shook his head, trying to calm down just long enough to ask the one question he had to know. Nothing made sense but the violence of his emotions, a violence that was the only life force left in him and, while he knew the danger, he had to find out. He had to know! With the bottle still in hand, he left the study and climbed the stairs.
Jacob heard this and rushed out from the parlor. "No, Justin!" He called from the bottom of the stairs. "Don't go up there! Her trunks are packed and ready! I can see her on the ship—"
Justin stopped but never turned around. "I have to know" was all he said and this in a voice so calm Jacob had reason to fear for Christina's life.
"Oh lord..."
Near crazed with anxiety, Christina jumped up at the sound of the door being unlocked. Justin opened the door and slipped inside. Suffering a rare moment's disorientation, he leaned against the door.
"Oh, Justin!" She started for him.
"No!" He held up his hand to stop her. She took in his disheveled appearance, the nearly empty bottle of brandy, the madness in his eyes. "Don't come near me," he said simply. "Whatever you do or say, just don't come near me."
She froze with an incredulous moment of disbelief. He thought what Jacob thought. He thought her guilty of that horrendous crime and, "Oh Justin, you don't really believe it? You can't—"
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