“I am also no stupid girl to permit a man intimacies before he’s earned the right to enjoy them.”
A cat or some other creature shifted in the hayloft and Matthew’s mare hung her head over the half door.
“You confirm my worst fear, Miss Jennings. You have given Matthew an incentive to marry you. If I allow that to happen, then I’ve no doubt Sutcliffe will replace Emmanuel as trustee for the Belmont estate until Christopher turns five-and-twenty. Needs must, Miss Jennings, and now we must take a short walk into the home wood.”
Fear choked Theresa, but rage and determination gave her courage. “So you’re the one who’s been trying to kill Matthew?”
“And nearly succeeding,” Agatha said. “It was too much to hope Matthew would consider himself the victim of that much bad luck, but more bad luck will head his way, I can assure you. He rides about the shire without so much as a groom, he eats like a starving apprentice. I’ll think of something once the boys are out from underfoot.”
The rest of the puzzle wasn’t hard to solve: Matthew would die, his children’s inheritance would be liberally raided at the behest of their embittered aunt, and years hence, when Christopher was old enough to manage the estate on his own, Agatha would be comfortable for life. Emmanuel would become expendable shortly thereafter, and nobody would be the wiser.
“What has Matthew ever done to earn your enmity?”
“We can discuss that as we walk,” Agatha said. “March, madam, and do not think of screaming, or my dear husband’s gun will accidentally discharge, to my everlasting, eternal horror—not that anybody would hear your scream or the gun go off over all that holiday music.”
* * *
Matthew would have run to the stable, except that his one advantage was the element of surprise. Agatha’s attempts on his life had nearly succeeded because she’d moved under a cloak of long-suffering decency. If she was threatening Theresa in the midst of a holiday gathering, then she’d grown cocksure.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t be hasty,” Sutcliffe said. “Agatha Capshaw has never by the least indication shown any animosity toward you, Belmont.”
“Agatha Capshaw threw her younger sister at Emmanuel, would be my guess,” Axel replied. “In the alternative, Agatha knew exactly what was afoot and did nothing to discourage Emmanuel’s philandering.”
Memory intruded, of Matilda beneath the mistletoe with her brother-in-law, and Agatha smiling benignly from the foot of the family dinner table.
“Agatha knew,” Matthew said. “She can’t be held responsible for the initial liaison, but if Emmanuel’s attentions had grown tiresome, she probably turned matters to her advantage as best she could. I made out my will practically before Christopher was baptized—with Agatha and Emmanuel as his godparents—and I didn’t change it when Rem and Richard came along. Why I missed the evidence staring me right in my very—”
Priscilla came pelting around the corner of the grape arbor, running smack into Matthew and lashing her arms around his waist.
“Mr. Belmont! She has a gun, and she has Mama, and I’m scared.”
Matthew was afraid, furious and very determined. He hoisted a panting Priscilla to his hip.
“We know, child, and we’re off to rescue your mama. Catch your breath, and all will be well.”
“Mr. Belmont, that lady hates you. She wants your money, and she hates everybody. You have to save M-Mama.”
“You were with us in the parlor this morning, Priscilla. Do you recall what I promised your mama?”
“For better or for worse? This is worse, Mr. Belmont. This is awful.”
And Matthew hadn’t time to properly comfort the child. “I’m your papa now too, and that gives me the right to protect your mama from every harm, and you as well. Nicholas, take the child to the library and read her a story.”
“I want to rescue Mama too.”
Nick plucked the girl from Matthew’s hold, set her on the ground, and kept her hand in his.
“You have already rescued your mama by warning us about the gun,” he said. “The rest will be easy for a man as brave as our squire.”
Nick winked at Priscilla, though the child ignored that nonsense.
“Bring Mama to the library when you’ve rescued her, please. And rescue her very soon.”
“We will,” Sutcliffe assured her. “Very, very soon.”
“Priscilla,” Matthew said, “did you see which why they went?”
“Into the woods on the path behind the stable.”
Into hundreds of acres of woods, where the paths would all be carpeted with leaves—and that was to Matthew’s advantage too.
* * *
“I suppose you’re curious,” Agatha said as Theresa shuffled along one of the myriad trails in Matthew’s home wood. “How did I abide all that nonsense between Manny and Matilda?”
What nonsense —?
The truth landed on Theresa’s fear with a nauseating weight.
Matthew had done nothing to earn Agatha’s enmity, but Agatha had reason aplenty for bitterness toward life in general. Agatha’s pretty sister had poached on her older sibling’s marital preserves, the Capshaw finances were in disarray, and Emmanuel had bumbled and tippled even a tiny jointure into oblivion….
“You must be very angry,” Theresa said, leaving as clear a trail through the bracken as she could without attracting Agatha’s notice. “Very hurt.”
“Saints in heaven, of course, I was upset at first, then I was relieved. Matilda’s first season in Town didn’t go at all according to her dreams. She expected from Polite Society the cosseting our parents had always showered upon her, but there was only Emmanuel, ever willing to flatter and flirt. Matilda flirted right back. Take the trail to the left.”
Agatha had had years to learn these trails and apparently had a destination in mind.
While Theresa had only a glimmer of a plan. She pretended to stumble over a root and snatched at a hanging vine.
“Watch where you’re going,” Agatha snapped, the pistol muzzle digging into Theresa’s back.
“I’m not wearing boots,” Theresa retorted. “Marching off to my own execution through the wilds of Sussex wasn’t on my agenda today.”
“Of course it wasn’t. You were too enthralled with the prospect of becoming Matthew’s hostess. Belmont House is beautiful, isn’t it? I’ve loved that property since I was a girl.”
Agatha spoke about the house with more longing and respect than she did her husband.
Theresa paused for a moment to fuss her skirts free from some brambles, straining her ears for the faintest sound of pursuit.
“That estate is Christopher, Remington, and Richard’s birthright. Do you think to take it from them?”
The only sound was the lapping of water against rocks in a wide stream running alongside the path. The woods would be beautiful in summer, but now, they were chilly and deserted. Not a bird or a squirrel moved overhead, not a breeze stirred the bare tree limbs.
“I’m very fond of my nephews,” Agatha said, “and they are not to blame for their parents’ venery. My husband took a fancy to Matilda, and I saw an opportunity to turn that betrayal into a connection with the only wealth attached to the family tree. Matilda probably tried to be a good wife to Matthew, but Manny was her first love, and she was never able to deny herself anything. Why Matthew put up with such a wife is beyond me, but he’s helplessly dutiful.”
Matthew had put up with Matilda in part out of duty, in part out of pity, and very much for the sake of the children. He’d said that his first marriage was concocted by the women of the family.
One woman, apparently. One very determined woman.
Theresa stumbled again, falling to her hands and knees on the soft earth of the path.
“Get up slowly, Miss Jennings, and quit delaying the inevitable. The fatal wound will be to the head, and you’ll barely know an instant’s suffering.”
Matthew would know endless suffering, though, if the woman he’d taken
to wife that very morning died before the sun set. Priscilla would suffer, Thomas, Loris, Alice…
This is different. The woman being marched at gunpoint through Matthew’s woods was not a lonely young lady, consigned to isolation or worse in a castle by the sea. Her brother’s love had been restored to her, and so much more besides. She had allies, she had family, she had many, many reasons to live.
Though little reason for hope.
“Do you think to make it appear that I’ve killed myself?” Theresa asked.
“Precisely. Matthew has failed to offer for you, and your disappointment has deranged you. Matthew will go back to being a boring widower who occasionally risks a flirtation at a house party—until tragedy befalls him, of course. Not much farther to go, thank goodness. I shall return to the festivities before I’m missed, and I do so enjoy hearing the boys sing.”
* * *
“There are more trails in this damned wood than Oxford has books,” Axel muttered as he tramped along at Matthew’s heels. “Where in the hell can Agatha be going?”
They faced another fork in the trail, but unlike the previous turnings, Matthew could not easily see the signs. The ground wasn’t as soft, no carpet of leaves was conveniently disturbed by the passing of two—
A vine had been torn free of the branches overhead. A thorny raspberry cane was broken two inches from the end.
“This way,” he said, marching off to the left, “and this trail leads to one destination.”
“To the river,” Axel said. “I dislike this, Matthew. The water level is high because of the snow melt, and few women swim well in winter clothing.”
“I bloody hate it,” Sutcliffe muttered. “I cannot see danger when it lurks at my sister’s very elbow. Why you had to lock up all the guns up in your armory today of all days, I do not know. Why I had to leave my knife at home—”
“Voices down,” Matthew whispered, breaking into a trot. “We always lock up the guns when children are loose on the property, particularly if strong spirits will be served in abundance as well. Now listen to me, for we’ll have only one chance. They’re heading for the vixen’s covert, and Theresa has been leaving us as clear a trail as she can. ”
* * *
“I’ve chosen a pretty place for you to die,” Agatha said, as Theresa emerged onto the banks of the river. The water was at least fifty feet across, running fast and high.
“You’ve chosen a remote place for me to die,” Theresa replied. “Do you hope my body won’t be found until spring?”
“There’s no good time to find a suicide’s body.” Agatha shaded her eyes against the afternoon sun. “If Matthew is lucky, he won’t live long enough to come upon your remains. A good heavy snow would help, but some things even I can’t control. At the river’s edge, please.”
That damnable pistol muzzle dug into Theresa’s side for the third time.
Theresa spun and grabbed Agatha’s wrist, but the older woman was surprisingly nimble, twisting free and wrenching the gun straight up. She hopped back, smiling at Theresa.
“I wondered when you’d show some spirit, and I don’t blame you for trying, but your time to die has come.”
“Or maybe yours has,” Theresa said, dashing left to put a sizeable willow between them. “Attempted murder is a hanging felony, and your little plan has yet to succeed.”
“My little plan has yet to fail, you mean. I might still be biding my time, except Emmanuel has bungled our finances to the very brink of ruin, and Matthew’s regard for you was obvious to the whole shire at the hunt meet. If you run, I’ll have a clear shot, and if you remain cowering back there, I’ll simply wait you out. I’ve been waiting for years, and for the Belmont fortune, I can be patient a little while longer.”
Agatha was not mad, not in the sense of having lost her sanity, but she was furious, at the end of her tether with the fate she’d been dealt. Theresa entertained one instant of pity for the woman, and silently tore off a twig from hanging willow branch.
“I can be patient until my husband comes to find me,” Theresa said. “Today is my wedding day, you know, and brides and grooms don’t like to be parted from one another on their wedding day.”
Theresa tossed the willow sprig to the right and took off at a dead run in the other direction.
Only to find herself face-to-face with Agatha’s pistol.
“Turn around,” Agatha said. “And say your prayers.”
* * *
Matthew crept closer to the clearing by the river, until he could see Agatha Capshaw holding a gun on Theresa, a stout, double-barreled horse pistol that would be accurate at close range.
Matthew counted to twenty in keeping with the only plan he could devise on no notice whatsoever, for tackling Agatha where she stood might mean injury or death for Theresa.
“Turn around,” Agatha said. “And say your prayers.”
Matthew stepped forward, making certain to slide his boot through the carpet of leaves as noisily as he could.
“Perhaps Agatha, you had better be the one importuning heaven,” Matthew called, “because the king’s man has arrived, and in the name of our sovereign, and in the name of justice itself, you are under arrest.”
Agatha stood between Matthew and Theresa, and unless she was an excellent shot, she was unlikely to wound them both.
“Theresa, my dearest, simply step back,” Matthew went on. “You will eventually be beyond the range of Agatha’s pistol, and it’s me she wants to kill, isn’t it?”
Theresa took one step in retreat, and Agatha’s pistol swung in her direction. “I will shoot your dearest lady love, if you take even one step closer to me, Matthew. Shoot her right through her heart.”
Thomas Jennings moved out from behind a holly bush and took the place before Theresa.
“You’ll have to shoot me first,” he said, “and there’s rather a lot of me for that one silly little gun. Theresa, you will please honor that vow to obey Mr. Belmont, and step back.”
To Matthew’s endless relief, Theresa retreated, keeping her brother between her and Agatha’s gun.
“You truly married her?” Agatha said.
“We married each other,” Matthew replied. “For richer, for poorer; for better, or for worse. I’m looking very much forward to the part about having and holding each other. Give me the gun, Agatha.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Agatha said, training her pistol on Matthew. “You can’t prove anything.”
He took a step toward her. “The harrow left where I was likely to send my horse leaping into its teeth? I’m nearly certain one of your tenant farmers will be able to identify it.”
“Stay back,” Agatha said, her finger closing on the trigger.
“You were at my house the day my dog ingested poison—for it was poison. I had a post-mortem done on dear Maida, and the evidence was clear.”
He was close enough to Agatha that a single bullet could be lethal. Not yet close enough to disarm her.
“I should have killed you years ago,” Agatha said, raising the gun to the level of Matthew’s heart.
Theresa called from the edge of the clearing. “Or you should simply have asked him for help.”
That unexpected—and quite sensible suggestion—gave Matthew the instant he needed to leap forward and snatch the gun from Agatha. Axel had his arms around her from behind the very next moment, and though she struggled, she was no match for his strength.
“Attempted murder,” Axel growled, as Theresa ran into Matthew’s embrace. “Not one but multiple counts, against three different unarmed individuals, including a magistrate. Malice aforethought goes without saying. We heard you, madam. Heard you admit your greed, your bloody patience. Matthew, please give me permission to throw this blight upon the species into the river.”
“If she should survive the first immersion,” Sutcliffe added, taking the gun from Matthew’s hand, “I’ll push her under again—and again, and again.”
Matthew eased his grip on h
is wife, lest Theresa be unable to breathe. Death awaited Agatha, if the king’s justice was brought to bear, and she deserved that at least.
“I cannot serve as magistrate in this case,” Matthew said. “I’m a witness, and so, Axel, are you. Agatha’s fate must rest in the hands of—”
Theresa stirred in his arms. “Matthew? Might we discuss this?”
“No,” Matthew said. “Not here, not now. The boys will be frantic with worry, Belmont House is bursting with guests, some of whom have already over-imbibed, and my temper is strained beyond bearing. She tried to kill you.”
All the terror and rage Matthew had carried inside for the past hour, all the nightmares he’d have for the rest of his life, were boiling up inside him. His hands ached to choke Agatha where she stood—except that would mean turning loose of Theresa, which he could not do.
Possibly not ever.
Theresa eased from Matthew’s embrace, keeping her fingers linked with his. “She tried to kill you too, but she is family. Emmanuel is family.”
Oh, worse than that. Emmanuel was close family to Matthew’s sons. “We will discuss this later, but justice must be done, Theresa. Agatha will pay for her crimes.”
Five yards away, Agatha looked small, homely, and old. Axel could easily have pitched her in the river and clearly still wanted to.
“Sutcliffe, please fetch a rope to the stable,” Matthew said.
Agatha sagged against Axel on a moan.
“He doesn’t intend to hang you, more’s the pity,” Axel said, as Sutcliffe passed him the gun. “Back to the stable now, madam. My nerves are not as steady as Matthew’s, and I’ve been drinking the holiday punch since early morning. Make your choices accordingly.”
Agatha walked off, head held high, Axel holding the gun trained on her back.
Theresa leaned against Matthew, and all over again, he saw his wife facing a bullet, because he’d been blind to evidence that had been staring him in the face for years.
“She’s gone,” Matthew said. “You need never lay eyes on her again.”
Matthew Page 29