Night Fire

by Catherine Coulter

  Geordie heard a loud squawk, turned, and cursed even more fluently at one of the other ganders, who looked ready to jump the fence in a more dramatic escape than his brother’s or his cousin’s or whatever.

  “Get back, ye bloody varmint!” Geordie yelled, waving his hands. “Hellfire, shut yer stupid trap.”

  Arielle burst into merry laughter. Geordie turned, his frown severe enough to curdle the milk, but Arielle just laughed harder.

  “It ’tain’t amusing,” said Geordie, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “I know,” Arielle said, trying to catch her breath. “At least you’re here safe and sound, Geordie. His lordship is out with a search party beating the brush for Hannibal and his ladies.”

  “Hannibal?”

  “Well, a long time ago it was a case of elephants. Now, in modern times, it’s a case of fowl. You don’t like the name?”

  “Seems to me, Miss Arielle, that ye’ll never be able to give the word to wring the necks of any of them for yer dinner, not if ye give ’em all names.”

  “That’s what the earl claims. I fear you are both right. Now, it’s my turn to go do some searching. Do fetch Mindle for me, Geordie. I daresay she’s become so fat she’ll wheeze rather than gallop with me.”

  “’Twill be a near thing. Eating her head off, that’s all she’s been doing since his lordship was hurt.”

  Arielle smiled at Geordie’s back. She felt wonderful. The afternoon was warm and sunny, the morning shower having left the grass smelling unaccountably greener. She hoped Burke wouldn’t overdo. He’d left with three of the men to search for the “damned and blasted” Hannibal, laughing loudly. Still, it had only been two weeks since Dorcas had stabbed him. He seemed fine, his energy, particularly in bed, more than adequate for such a physical man. She gave Geordie a wicked grin and let him toss her onto Mindle’s back.

  “I shan’t be gone long. Tell his lordship, if he returns before I do, that I’ve joined the hunt. No wringing any necks, now. I begin to think that for Christmas dinner we’ll have crimped salmon.”

  “I think I should come with you, Miss Arielle. You know what his lordship said.”

  She hesitated a moment, then said quite firmly, “I know, but I can’t remain a prisoner all my life. Besides, why would either Evan or Etienne have any interest in me anymore? Leave go, Geordie, I’ll be all right.”

  She clicked Mindle into a gallop and headed toward the east pasture. Geordie smiled after her, heard one of those damnable half-witted fowls raising a ruckus again, and turned, curses already forming on his lips.

  Arielle felt the wind tugging at her riding hat and lifted her chin. Strands of hair came loose and whipped across her face. She tried to tuck the hair back behind her ears. Mrs. Pepperall, of all people, had informed her in no uncertain language that she would assist her ladyship until they could decide upon a maid to train as her lady’s maid. But Mrs. Pepperall wasn’t as gifted as Dorcas in arranging hair. Another pin slipped.

  Poor Dorcas. No matter how encouraging Burke sounded, Arielle was convinced that the old woman was dead. If she wasn’t dead, then where was she? A crazy old woman wasn’t one to simply disappear. Folk remembered barmy people and talked about them. Word would have gotten back to the Abbey.

  Arielle pulled Mindle in and called to Hannibal. How, she wondered, grinning to herself, did one really call to a gander or goose?

  There was no answering squawk and no sight of a single, long, skinny, white-feathered neck.

  She gave Mindle her head and continued east. She didn’t realize where she was going, having paid no particular heed, until she saw the chimney stacks of Rendel Hall in the distance. Her fingers curled about the leather reins. She hadn’t been back here since she’d come as Burke’s wife to Ravensworth Abbey.

  A dream or reality?

  She thought of her words to Burke the previous day. If she went to Rendel Hall, wouldn’t it prove that everything she knew now was real? That she was real, and her life with Burke was real?

  She straightened her shoulders and galloped toward her former home. It looked neglected, as if it had been empty longer than just two months. No one had scythed the front or side lawns. The shutters over the windows made it look as haunted as any child wanting to be terrified could wish.

  I won’t be afraid, she said to herself. I won’t. I’m not a child. Everything is different now. I am different. But is that real or a dream? You’ve only been different at Ravensworth.

  Oddly, she felt her hands grow damp inside the fine York leather gloves. She clamped her teeth together and rode Mindle directly to the front doors.

  The Hall was obviously deserted. There was no smoke coming from the chimney stacks. No sign of movement from any of the windows.

  Rendel Hall would become a derelict if it weren’t purchased soon, she thought as she dismounted. She tied her mare’s reins to a sturdy yew bush, then patted her nose. “I shan’t be long. It’s a question of disproving dreams, that’s all.”

  She grinned and thought, I am an idiot, yes, but I really don’t care. She wanted to face down this miserable house and all its unpleasant memories. Burke would have approved, she knew that. He would have said she was performing a mental cleaning, getting rid of the excess junk that only made for bad memories.

  The front doors were securely locked. This was only a temporary setback. She ran her fingers along the edge of the windowsill just outside the library. Sure enough, there was a key. It was rusted and dirty, and she wiped it off on her riding skirt.

  The key turned in the front-door lock after some protracted maneuvering, and she stepped into the entrance hall. It was cold, that was the first thing she noticed. Damp and cold. She shivered, backed up a step, then forced herself to stop. She was here, she would stay until she proved to herself that—That what? She wasn’t terribly certain what it was she wanted to prove. She only knew that if she forced herself to remember what it was like in this house, to face it squarely, she would have succeeded in exorcising the past.

  She rubbed her hands over her arms. There hadn’t been any dampness before, or this bonechilling cold. Arielle walked toward the drawing room. The sliding doors were shut and she shoved them open. All the furniture was swathed in ghostly white Holland covers. She looked at the fireplace and saw Paisley standing there grinning at her, that superior grin of his that granted her nothing but what whim allowed. His whim, naturally. She shuddered. She realized that she was standing as rigid as a rock, a captive of fear. She shook her head. There was nothing here to harm her. Nothing at all. Paisley was dead, long dead, his evil with him.

  She froze. She heard the sound again. A shuffling sound from overhead. Mice, she thought. Yes, that was it. She didn’t want to go up the stairs. She stood at the base, staring up, straining to hear the sound again. The house was starkly silent. She placed her right foot on the bottom stair.

  Oh, God, I’m afraid.

  “Stop it, Arielle.” The sound of her own voice brought reason. She was in her old house, quite alone, with nothing more important to do than to see if mice had invaded the upper story. That was all there was to it.

  But Rendel Hall was never your house. It was his. Only his.

  She flung her head back and shouted, “And you’re dead, you miserable old bounder.”

  She took the steps quickly then, nearly running. When she reached the landing, she turned and looked down into the entrance hall. It was shadowy and grim and silent. A stupid old house with a musty atmosphere because no one lived here.

  Arielle turned back to look down the long corridor. Toward the end of it, on the right, was her former bedchamber, and adjoining it, Paisley’s master bedchamber. She forced herself to walk down that corridor. She looked neither to the right nor to the left, but she paused every few steps to listen.

  Nothing.

  Quietly she opened the door to her bedchamber and stepped inside. Again all the furnishings were covered with white Holland covers. The room looked eerie and somehow frig
htening. If Burke had been with her, it wouldn’t be at all frightening. That realization made her angry with herself. She wasn’t a weak, helpless fool. No, she was strong. Only in the dream. Not here. Here it is real, and real is dangerous.

  “Stop it.” The sound of her voice, high and a bit shrill, made her smile. “There’s nothing here to be alarmed at. Don’t you see, you ninny?”

  She walked quickly toward the adjoining door and flung it open, making as much noise as she could manage. She peered into Paisley’s bedchamber. It was filled with shadows and bizarre shapes and airless cold. She heard that strange noise again and paused.

  She stepped into the room. She could hear her heart pounding. God, this room. Such fear, such hoplessness and pain she’d felt in here. But the room wasn’t to blame, it was him. Only him. He was the evil. She looked toward the fireplace and saw something there; no, someone was there, someone who was weaving slightly, someone garbed in billowy, filmy clothes.

  “Who’s there?” Her voice was a thin reed of sound. “Who are you? Who’s there?”

  The figure moved.

  Arielle couldn’t help herself. Her hands flew out in front of her to ward it off. She screamed.

  The figure leaped toward her and she turned, bent only on getting through that adjoining door and escaping. She felt fingers close over her upper arm and she shrieked again, whirling about to face her attacker.

  Before she could even look up, she felt something hard and stiff come down on the side of her head. She saw brilliant flashes of white light then nothing.

  She fell to the floor, unconscious.

  They hadn’t found either Hannibal or his two ladies, but there was still an overabundance of high spirits. Even George Cerlew, normally the most staid and reticent of men, was laughing at one of Joshua’s tales of his and Burke’s adventures in Portugal. He was spinning it out outrageously.

  “So I’ll tell you it’s true,” Joshua said, eyeing his appreciative audience before delivering his final line, “the goat bit him. Bit him right on the butt. Left side.”

  Burke was still grinning when they pulled into the stable yard. “No luck,” he called to the stable lads. “We’ll rest a bit before we have another go at it.”

  “I don’t think we should bother,” said Joshua. “By now somebody’s caught those fool squawkers and thrust them in the Sunday pot.”

  George chuckled.

  “Give Ashes a good rubbing,” Burke said to Harry, the newest stable lad, a young man with a wide gap between his front teeth.

  “My lord.”

  “Yes, Geordie. We didn’t find Hannibal, if that’s your inquiry.”

  “No, it’s Miss Arielle.”

  Burke tensed. “What about her?”

  “She hasn’t returned yet. She went out to hunt for Hannibal on her own. She’s been gone two hours now, and I’m worried about her.”

  “She went out by herself?”

  “Aye, insisted, she did, that who would care a farthing about her now and she didn’t want to be a prisoner anymore.”

  Oh, God, Burke thought. Oh, please, dear God, no. Aloud he said in the calmest voice he could force, “Two hours? Well, I fancy she’s simply lost track of time. We shan’t worry until—” He broke off, then cursed. “Saddle up Khan, Geordie. Ashes is too blown for further riding.”

  Ten minutes later, Burke, George, Geordie, and Joshua were riding east.

  “You’re certain, Geordie?” Burke asked yet again.

  “She was riding east, milord,” Geordie said.

  It was a ghastly smell. Something rotten, something sticky and wet and rotten. She gagged on the stench. It was so close. Arielle opened her eyes. She lay perfectly still, trying to regain her senses. She was lying on a hard, cold floor. Her hands were bound behind her, as were her ankles. She turned her head slowly, aware of the throbbing pain behind her left ear.

  She choked down a scream. Hannibal, his throat neatly cut, lay on a table beside her. His long neck and head were hanging over the side of the table. Blood was dripping slowly, rhythmically, landing to splat on the flagstone floor just by Arielle’s head.

  She moaned and jerked away, to her other side.

  “Shush, my baby. It’s all right now. Dorcas is here. You’re safe again.”

  Dorcas. Arielle didn’t move. She felt fear so deep, so paralyzing, that she couldn’t speak. Dorcas was on her knees beside her, her fingers stroking through Arielle’s hair.

  “Dorcas,” she whispered. “You’re all right. I’ve been so worried about you.”

  “I know, I know, my baby. I’m all right. As are you.”

  The old woman was rocking back and forth over her. Arielle saw that she looked like an old hag. Her hair was filthy and matted to her head. Her body smelled, and her clothes were stained with food and grease. And her eyes were quite vacant. She was mad.

  I must reason with her, Arielle thought, but a wave of hopelessness gripped her. Reason with a madwoman? Dorcas had tied her up and dragged her into the kitchen. There were kitchen knives everywhere. Hannibal’s throat was cut. She would kill her. Soon, now, just like the gander.

  “Dorcas, won’t you untie me?”

  “Yes, I’ll untie you, but I’m afraid of him. He might hurt me again.”

  The old woman rose, looking furtively around her. “I’ll see if he’s here,” she said in a hushed whisper. And she left the kitchen, her steps shuffling and awkward.

  She was no longer Dorcas, Arielle thought. And who was he?

  “Please come back and untie me,” she whispered, but there was only silence now, silence and the stench of blood.

  Her arms were growing numb. She tried to pull her wrists free. For five minutes she tugged and shifted and pulled. All for naught. Think, Arielle. She needed to cut the ropes. She saw a knife up on a shelf at least five feet above her. She rolled into a tight ball, then jerked upward to her knees. Slowly, trying to keep her balance, she managed to get to her feet. Her ankles were tied tightly; she’d have to hop to the counter. She managed two tiny steps and fell on her side to the floor, the wind knocked out of her. She lay there for a moment, trying desperately to block out the pain in her hip. Once again she managed to get to her feet. This time she hopped three steps before she again toppled. Five falls later, she finally reached the counter. She stretched her bound hands toward the knife.

  She couldn’t reach it. Three inches. That was what separated her from the damned knife, from freedom. She nearly pulled her arms from their sockets trying to reach the knife. It was no use. She searched frantically for another knife. There were three, each one farther out of reach than the other. Her chest heaved and she felt a wave of hopelessness wash over her. She wouldn’t give up.

  She looked back at the table and saw Hannibal. She made a vow at that moment to release all the geese and ganders. They were penned up, with no power, helpless, just as she was. It was silly, but her vow lifted the numbing despair for a short moment.

  A sharp edge. Wasn’t there a single one in the entire wretched kitchen? She noticed the filth then, the scraps of rotted and rotting food on every countertop, the layers of dust and dirt and grease. Dorcas must have come here immediately. She’d lived here for the past week and a half. Like something less than human, like an animal. Arielle felt her flesh crawl. Then she saw the small paring knife that was wedged between a pot and a skillet on the far counter. She used the edge of the counter to keep her balance as she moved with agonizing awkwardness toward it. She was breathing hard when at last the small knife was within her reach. She grabbed it. Her heart was pounding, churning with fear, excitement, hope.

  It was difficult to turn the knife so that its sharp tip could slice through the ropes. She cut herself two times in the process. Finally she settled into a rhythm. Back and forth. Back and forth. She felt pains shooting through her wrists, but she kept at it. She felt the ropes loosening.

  Then she heard footsteps. These weren’t shuffling and awkward. These were firm and quick. A man’s foo
tsteps.

  She heard a raised voice from outside the kitchen. A man’s voice. She stared toward the kitchen door, unable to look away.

  Twenty-two

  “My, my. And here I thought the old woman was making it up. Hello, my darling girl.”

  Arielle wasn’t surprised, not really. “Etienne,” she said, barely moving her lips. She felt the ropes begin to give. She held her hands perfectly still, held her body still, afraid that he would suspect, afraid that he would see something in her face.

  “What are you doing, if I may ask?”

  “Nothing. I couldn’t bear to lie there, smelling the blood.”

  “I see,” said Etienne.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He smiled at her. He knew she was afraid. He’d thought and thought and schemed until both he and Evan had been blind drunk more times than he cared to count. How to get her? How to abduct her from that armed fortress that was Ravensworth Abbey? And here she was, all tied up, waiting for him in the kitchen of Rendel Hall. He laughed, unable to help himself. He strolled into the room and leaned his hip against the kitchen table, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “I’ve been staying here for several days now. I am conducting what you might call an inventory. After all, my father owned Rendel Hall and all its furnishings, as did his father before him. I will take anything that pleases me. It is only just and fair. As for your half brother, why, I believe that old Evan has given up on getting to you. I have never seen him so enraged as when he came back to Leslie Farm, his nose swollen and bruised. Your husband smashed him up quite well.”

  “I hit Evan in the nose.”

  Etienne looked clearly startled. “You?” He laughed then. “By all the saints, that is wonderful. Well, it is a good thing you are with me and not with your brother. He isn’t a gentleman, Arielle, not at all.”

  “Did you force poor Dorcas to come here?”

  “I? Not at all. When I came I discovered she was living here. I didn’t mind sharing with her because she gave me ideas and new hope. I hoped you would come here looking for her. I had heard, everyone has heard, that your precious husband has had men out searching for her for the past week and a half. So I let her stay. Not upstairs, she’s far too filthy to be that close, but in the kitchen. She does well down here.” Etienne looked at the dead goose. “Our dinner, I suppose,” he added. “I should tell her to do her killing outside. The smell is offensive.”