Lord Satan
Page 5
She was in a newer wing of The Castle. She walked in paneled hallways, her footsteps muffled by thick carpets. Sconces along the corridor contained blazing candles. Did they leave them burning all night, or had someone in the household not retired? Could they be kept burning for Lord Neil? Her heart raced at the thought of him still awake, somewhere in this vast maze.
She must look for Lord Cauldreigh’s chamber, not merely stalk the hallways passing closed doors. She opened the next door and peered in. She made out the shape of a huge table in the darkness. A billiard table perhaps. Not a bedchamber. Closing the door, she continued. She peeked in several other rooms, none of which contained beds. She needed to find stairs to the next floor.
Around a corner, the corridor opened into a broad stair landing. Libbetty climbed up a flight, turning right at the top and exploring that hall. It was darker, lit only by a candle-stand on a small table at the top of the stairs, and shadows moved before her. She shuddered and picked up the candle. Opening the first door she came to, she discovered a bedchamber, empty, and moved on.
How much time had passed? Likely no more than a quarter of an hour, though it felt like hours. She looked in the next room.
A prickle at her back made her turn. Before she had time to look behind her, she was jerked by the arm and spun around. The candlestick dropped from her limp fingers, the flame extinguishing itself against the thick carpet. Libbetty emitted a strangled gasp.
The corridor was too dark to identify the looming menace. But it didn’t matter. In the moment before the candle guttered out, she recognized Lord Neil, saw murder in his eyes.
And she saw the pistol aimed straight at her face.
Chapter Four
Neil stalked the dark figure in front of him, his heart hammering with fury and triumph. At last. In a few moments he would capture Trevor’s assailant.
The man crept forward, his footfalls making no sound. The candle in his hand wavered, casting a flickering light against the walls and throwing a bulky shadow behind him.
Neil saw no sign of a weapon. It must be concealed. His fingers tightened around the pistol butt, twitching with the urge to shoot, as the villain opened the door to a vacant bedchamber.
Easing the door shut, the intruder moved on to the next. He came altogether too close to Trevor. Time to end this hunt. Neil closed the distance and grabbed the man’s right arm with his left. Whipping him around to face him, he raised the pistol, fingering the trigger.
The floor seemed to lurch beneath his feet as he stared into the wide, startled eyes of Miss Bishop. The candle snuffed out, leaving them in darkness. Only the imprint of her face on his brain remained, causing him to disbelieve what his eyes had told him. He tore off her cap and a cascade of hair descended over his hand. He remembered that hair.
For a moment, he couldn’t move. Then Miss Bishop’s head tipped forward and her body sank. He pushed her to a sitting position on the floor, thrusting her head between her knees and growling, “Don’t faint, damn you!”
Checking that the pistol was uncocked, he shoved it into a pocket and knelt beside her. Her hair had been pinned up under the man’s cap and fell unevenly, a few strands still caught up on top of her head. It appeared almost burgundy in the diffuse light coming up the staircase from the torches below.
“I’m not. I don’t faint!” She lifted her head, her eyes flashing defiance. But her voice was thready, and his eyes, adjusted to the dim light, picked out the pale face, the freckles splashed across her nose.
“What in He—Hades were you doing, breaking in here like a thief? I nearly shot you!” He’d all but given in to the urge to kill Trevor’s supposed assailant. Cold sweat broke out on his face.
She paled again, and he prepared to apply the head-between-the-knees remedy again, but she snapped, “I’m not a thief.”
“That silver candlestick says differently. It’s enough to see you hanged—or transported.”
“I wasn’t going to steal it!”
“If I hauled you before any magistrate, would they believe that? I caught you with the evidence.”
She stared at him, her eyes enormous.
“Who else is with you?”
“No one. I c-came alone.” She averted her eyes.
She was an unskillful liar. “How did you enter?” He’d extract the truth from her. If she had bribed a servant—any servant who could not be trusted would be dismissed. This slip of a girl had defeated his elaborate efforts to protect Trevor and he would know how.
She made no reply, and he tugged her to her feet. “We are going somewhere more comfortable for this.” More comfortable for him—he would not give her any succor.
She followed, unresisting, as he descended the stairs and entered his study—his father’s study. The room should scare her into confessing her sins. God knew it had worked on him many a time.
He pushed her into a huge armchair that dwarfed her small figure. Sitting behind the desk, he rang the bell for Salton.
After a small delay, his butler answered the summons, clad in a dressing gown and nightcap. His eyebrows rose at Miss Bishop’s presence. “We have an uninvited guest. Take a couple of footmen and search for others. She has a pack of brothers, and a friend, a Miss Hogwood. She must have some accomplice.”
“There isn’t! I came alone.”
Neil quirked an eyebrow at Salton, who nodded. “Yes, my lord.” He departed.
“You may think loyalty is an admirable trait, Miss Bishop, but I assure you in this case it is misplaced. I will have the whole truth from you before you leave here.”
“You can’t keep me here!”
“No?” He lifted an eyebrow. “So, your parents know where you are? Will they come pounding on my door asking for you?”
She squirmed, averting her eyes, before she straightened and looked at him again. “What are you going to do with me?”
“Perhaps nothing, if you tell me the truth. Who would the magistrate be in this district, I wonder?”
“Squire Hogwood,” she offered.
“How convenient his daughter is your friend. I suppose if it chances she is with you, he might not be agreeable about packing you both off to Botany Bay.”
“She isn’t,” Miss Bishop said, and Neil caught a faint note of resentment in her voice. He smiled.
Salton returned, dragging a young man by the collar. “I found this person in the kitchen, my lord.”
“The kitchen!” A world of indignation came through Miss Bishop’s voice.
“I became lost,” the boy said with a shrug.
Neil inspected him with distaste. He didn’t have the appearance of a Bishop. Not a brother, then. The lad appeared familiar, however. “Ah, yes, the physician’s son, isn’t it?”
Young Hayes nodded. He was trying for insouciance, but Neil could see he sweat pop out on his brow.
“No doubt you found some way in when you came earlier.”
“You needn’t tell him anything, Alonso,” Miss Bishop hurried to say before the boy could answer.
“If you wish to see your homes again, you will tell me. You aren’t leaving here until I have the full particulars of how—and why—you made it into The Castle.”
“You can’t keep us here!” The girl leaped to her feet.
Neil cursed to himself. He could not explain his concerns for Trevor’s safety without destroying his carefully constructed ill fame. He must discover the weakness these children had found in his defenses.
“Salton, our guests are proving intransigent. Perhaps spending a night in the dungeons would persuade them to cooperate.” He glowered at the pair standing before him.
Young Mister Hayes swallowed, his prominent Adams apple bobbing. “The dungeons?”
Miss Bishop’s pugnacious stance lessened. “You wouldn’t?” Her words came out in a breathy squeak.
He grinned.
*
The carriage lurched along the rutted country road. Lord Neil insisted on conveying them home. Not he perso
nally. He gave orders to his army of servants and it was done.
“You shouldn’t have told him anything.” Libbetty’s burning resentment spilled over onto Alonso.
“Why not? Will we go back there? I certainly won’t. If you want to, you can find your own way in.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so frightened of a silly threat. He wouldn’t have sent us to any dungeon. I’m sure there isn’t even a dungeon in The Castle.”
“Maybe not. Did you really want to put it to the test?”
Libbetty shivered, remembering Lord Neil’s expression when he’d first caught her. Even she, who had no experience with evil, recognized the violence in a man’s eyes. A man who could look so murderous was capable of anything, anything. Now she had no doubt he did intend harm to Lord Cauldreigh.
“Yes, I do want to go back. There must be a clue somewhere. He wouldn’t have been so determined to keep us out otherwise. I’m going to catch him and save Lord Cauldreigh.”
“What melodrama. Why should he want to hurt Cauldreigh?”
“I don’t know. I just know he does.”
He would regret threatening her with a gun and dragging her all over his house like an inanimate object. He had accused her of fainting. She would never do anything so weak. She merely felt light-headed for a moment—and who would not, with a madman pointing a gun at her? When she was done with him, he’d have learned to take her seriously.
The carriage stopped and the groom opened the door. “Yer sure you can go inside yer house safely?” he asked.
They were by the church, with the vicarage just beyond. “Yes,” Libbetty said, jumping out. She turned to watch as the groom climbed up next to the driver and the carriage lumbered on. She suddenly felt very alone in her quest. She could not depend upon Edwina, and now Alonso had distanced himself from the task.
*
The next day, heavy clouds threatened rain. The coming damp scented the air. Between the weather and Edwina’s failure to join in last night’s adventure, Libbetty was sure her friend would not come for their ride, so she took Concobhar to meet Wat at their prearranged time.
When she reached the clearing that was their rendezvous spot, she pulled the gelding to a stop. She glanced up through the leafy canopy at the sky, wondering whether Wat would come today. They had met infrequently of late, and he might think she would not come in such unpromising weather.
Rain pattered on the leaves around her, and she gathered the reins to return home. Just then she heard a horse approaching from the south, and Wat appeared, his worried expression vanishing as he spotted her. Raindrops bedewed his sun-browned face and splotched the tan wool of his riding coat. “I didn’t know if you’d come,” he said. “I almost went back when it came on to rain.”
He dismounted and helped Libbetty down from Concobhar, taking her in his arms for a fervent kiss. She returned the kiss, her arms cinched tight around his slender waist.
He broke away and looked down at her, not touching her again. “Libbetty, I don’t want wait any longer. Let’s ask your father for permission to marry.”
She averted her face. “I know Papa won’t agree to it. Who he thinks I’ll find to marry, or how he expects to provide for all of us—eight so far, and Mama is increasing again.”
“Please, Lib, let me talk to your father.”
When she had first counseled waiting, she had been certain her father would not allow her to marry beneath her. He had often spoken against matrimony outside of one’s class. But lately, from the harsh way he spoke of the aristocracy, she had begun to think he had meant marriage between ordinary folk and the higher classes was wrong.
But in any case, she knew her mother thought her too young to marry. She wished she knew what to do. She had been so sure of herself, but suddenly she seemed to be changing. She needed more time to know her mind. “Please, Wat, let things be for now. I’ll figure out what to do soon.”
A clap of thunder interrupted them, and the rain started in earnest. Wat led his dun horse and Concobhar to an overgrown path Libbetty had not noticed before, saying, “There’s a shelter nearby.” He plunged into the underbrush. After a little hesitation, Libbetty followed. A few hundred yards in, a neglected old hut stood in a small clearing, much grown over. Wat tied the horses’ reins around a low-hanging branch.
He pushed open the hut’s sagging door, brushed aside some cobwebs and stepped in. Peering over his shoulder at the thick dust and gloom, Libbetty shrank from entering. However, her sodden riding habit vanquished her misgivings. Wat closed the door behind her as she peered around.
The light from one tiny, broken window dimly illuminated the room, and Libbetty could scarcely believe anyone had ever dwelled there. Even empty of furnishings, the cramped single room allowed little space to move, and Wat could not stand upright. He found some old sacks in a corner, shook dust from them and spread them on the floor for Libbetty to sit on.
Libbetty’s imagination supplied the hut with mice and other crawling creatures. With a shudder, she gingerly sat upon the sacks, and he lowered himself alongside her, remarking, “Mayhap the rain will let up soon. ‘Tisn’t the most comfortable place, but leastwise it will keep us dry.” A large drip falling from the ceiling landed on her face at that moment, and they both laughed. “Well, almost dry, anyhow.” He reached for her hand, saying, “Are you cold?”
His fingers touched her wrist above her gloves, making her shiver. “No,” she said, and he eyed her skeptically. “Really, I’m not.” She pulled her hand away.
“What made you come on such a day?”
“Are you not happy to see me?”
“Of course I am. But I’ve looked for you for several days when the sun shone. Now, when it rains, here you are.”
“Well, that’s why. I could not get away, and when the chance finally came, I would not let the weather stop me.”
“What has kept you away?”
“Oh, a number of things. Tom has several times taken Concobhar, and I have been helping Mama. Edwina has asked me to ride with her almost every day.”
“You didn’t used to go riding with her, did you?”
“No, not often.” At Wat’s questioning look, she explained, “Edwina hopes to catch a glimpse of Lord Cauldreigh, and she wanted me to ride with her.”
“Not hoping to catch a glimpse of him yourself, were you?” Wat’s voice had gone gruff, with a wobble of uncertainty.
This evidence of his jealousy endeared him to Libbetty. “Of course not. You should know that.” To reassure him, she leaned over and touched his lips with hers.
He responded by increasing the pressure of his lips upon her mouth, placing his arms around her and holding tightly. Pleasurable feelings swirled through Libbetty, and she leaned against him, her hands stealing up to his shoulders.
Wat broke off the kiss and touched his forehead to hers, his eyes closed. She could see his throat convulse, and his brow was slick. Libbetty tried to pull back, but he held on, saying, “Please.” He renewed their kiss, more intense than before. For a moment, she lost herself in the sensation of desire.
He pushed her down on the sacking, his mouth hard against hers. She felt her straw hat crush against the floor, and a cloud of dust arose, half-choking her. Then, as he shifted his weight, pinning her, one of his hands fumbling at the buttons of her jacket, she turned her face away. “Stop it, Wat. Let me up.” But he seemed not to hear and imprisoned her mouth again.
She could not push him off, with one arm pressed awkwardly between him and the packed dirt floor. The expression on Wat’s face frightened her.
Libbetty panicked, twisting and flailing until she freed her arm and pushed at him with a wild strength. “Let me go!” she shrieked, breathing in gasping sobs.
Slowly his eyes unglazed. He released her, and she jumped up, straightening her hat and brushing at her riding habit. The dust on her soaked skirts had transformed into mud.
“I’m sorry, Libbetty, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Wat stood and grabbed her arm. “Don’t go,” he pleaded. “I won’t do anything more.”
She yanked away from him and renewed her attack on the door. “I have to get out of here.” Violent tremors wracked her body.
“There now.” Wat spoke gently, reaching around her to open the door. She escaped out into the rain. Picking up Concobhar’s reins, she searched for a block to assist her in mounting.
Wat followed her. “Please Lib, don’t be afraid of me.” She looked at him and tried to calm herself. “You’ll become wet if you ride home now. Why don’t you come back into the hut?”
“No!”
“I’ll stay out if you want.”
“I can’t go back in there.”
Shrugging, he helped her mount. Holding on to the reins, he gazed up at her. “Truly, I’m sorry, Libbetty. But I can’t stand this waiting much longer. When will you tell your parents?”
At that moment, her thoughts clarified. “I can’t. We must give up the idea. I—I mistook my feelings. I can’t marry you.” Libbetty reached down to take possession of the reins.
His shocked expression made her feel guilty. “I’m sorry, Wat. It’s not your fault.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“Yes, I do. I didn’t think ahead to actually being married. I liked meeting you—I like you. But I don’t love you.” She walked Concobhar forward a few paces, then looked back at Wat. His shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.
Libbetty rode away, tears mingling with the rain coursing down her face. She did not know if she felt more wretched on her own or Wat’s behalf. What would she do now? She had thought her future settled. Perhaps settling her future had been much of the appeal. That, and to think someone as handsome as Wat loved her. She had treated him so shabbily.
*
The following day dawned fair. A warmth in the air presaged summer when Libbetty picked flowers in her mother’s garden.
In the afternoon, dressed in a day frock of pale green muslin, she sat in the drawing room with her mother when Edwina came. Libbetty had assumed Edwina would not yet dare face her. Had perhaps even given up her pursuit of Lord Cauldreigh.