Bewitching: His Secret Agenda

by Carla Neggers

  “And what would you have done?”

  “If I knew your uncle was snooping around Marsh Point? I don’t know.”

  “You’d have raised hell, Hannah. At the very least you’d have hauled your cousin over, and he’d have called the police and had Uncle Jonathan arrested as a trespasser.” He glanced at her. “Like me, you would have felt you had no choice.”

  He was crowding Cousin Thackeray on the winding, narrow road out to Marsh Point. Thackeray braked hard and Win cursed, just missing the truck’s rear end. But he backed off. Hannah could almost hear her cousin’s satisfied chuckle.

  She sighed. “I don’t know if you’re right or you’re wrong, and I guess we’ll never find out. Did your uncle tell you why he’s here?”

  “We were just getting into it when you and Thackeray barged in. Nice timing.” He exhaled, running one hand through his wild hair. His day obviously hadn’t started out very well. Neither, however, had hers. “Hannah, I’m doing the best I can. Will you believe that much?”

  She didn’t answer right away. They had just rounded a bend, and she could see white-capped waves pounding the rocks of Marsh Point. The sun was shining. The temperature had begun to climb. It would be a splendid day in southern Maine. But her life here, Hannah thought, would never again be the same.

  Finally she said, “I’ll believe that much, yes.”

  In a few moments, he turned into Thackeray’s driveway and followed the truck up to the house. Jonathan Harling seemed to jump out before the truck had even come to a full stop. He was waving his arms and shouting.

  “This should be interesting,” Win said grimly.

  “Think I should keep a bucket of cold water handy, in case things get out of control?”

  He looked at her and grinned. “A woman after my own heart.” He nodded toward the house. “Shall we?”

  “As I see it,” she said, paraphrasing his earlier words, “we have no choice.”

  * * *

  HANNAH, THACKERAY MARSH and Uncle Jonathan were arguing a point of early-American history that held no interest for Win, but at least, he thought, no one had yet come to blows. He noticed that Hannah held her own in the argument with the two men, whom she accused of agreeing with each other, even if they wouldn’t admit it. Being no historian, Win couldn’t comment.

  Finally he rose, feeling it was relatively safe to leave them alone, and wandered from the living room to the dining room, preoccupied not with Puritans but with a document potentially worth a million dollars. If it existed. If it could be located.

  Uncle Jonathan could use the money.

  So could the Marshes.

  Win exhaled, walking through the French doors onto a deck that overlooked a small cove he hadn’t noticed yesterday. Here the land sloped gently to the water, where waves lapped over sand and marsh grass. He squinted against the sunlight.

  Something had been shoved into the brush. It was dark blue; he could see just one end.

  A canoe. A wooden canoe.

  His uncle was capable of many things, but not of paddling from Boston or even Kennebunkport in a canoe. He had said he’d taken a bus and a taxi, and Win believed him. Maybe it was Thackeray Marsh’s canoe. Or Hannah’s.

  But he didn’t believe it. A dark suspicion started to formulate itself in his mind.

  Returning to the living room, he grabbed his uncle. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  Uncle Jonathan was red-faced with arguing. “These two—” he jerked his head at the Marshes “—know nothing about American judicial history.”

  “I’m sure they don’t.” Win didn’t give a damn if they did. “Let’s go.”

  “Hold your horses, there. I won’t have you humoring me just because I’m an old man.”

  “Uncle Jonathan, we need to talk. I have a proposition I want to discuss with you before I present it to Hannah and Thackeray.”

  It was never easy for Jonathan Harling to abandon an argument, but he took the hint and followed his nephew outside. They left behind Hannah and Thackeray, grumbling and looking very suspicious, as well they might.

  “What the devil have you got a bee in your bonnet about?” Uncle Jonathan demanded. “I was being civil to those two.”

  “I think I know who ransacked your apartment.”

  The old man narrowed his eyes, then nodded solemnly. “I was wondering when you’d figure it out.”

  * * *

  “WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE they’re up to?” Thackeray asked.

  Hannah sat cross-legged on the threadbare carpet, already contemplating just that question herself. “I don’t know. But don’t you get the feeling they’re holding more cards in their deck than we are? And don’t tell me it’s the Harling way.”

  “Well, it is.”

  “Win’s on to something.” She climbed to her feet, feeling oddly confident. Not outmatched. Not outwitted. Not as if Win Harling and his cantankerous uncle were actual enemies. Not allies, perhaps, but definitely not enemies. “I think I’ll take a walk, too.”

  “Don’t let ’em catch you.”

  But he sounded distracted, preoccupied with something besides his natural inclination to doubt everything the Harlings said or did. His eyes weren’t focused on her. She said goodbye, but he didn’t answer, didn’t even wave a hand.

  Something was definitely up. Was she the only one who didn’t know what?

  Outside the air was still and so clear that everything seemed overfocused, outlined in sharp detail against a sky so blue that it made a body appreciate life. Hannah went through the side door, just as Win and his uncle had, but saw no sign of them. She had no idea where they’d gone. Had they wandered toward her cottage? She didn’t want to eavesdrop, but her trust level wasn’t what it had been only a few hours ago. She wanted to keep an eye on the two Harlings.

  It was ridiculous, she thought, a Marsh like herself falling for a Harling, but there it was. And she wasn’t falling, she knew that much. She’d already fallen.

  She was in love with the man.

  They weren’t anywhere outside or inside her cottage. Hannah stared out the picture window in her living room, tapping her foot and cursing them. She forced herself to return to Thackeray’s house, duly noting along the way that Win’s car was still parked behind her cousin’s old truck. Wherever they’d gone, it couldn’t be far.

  She headed back inside, determined to get some straight answers out of Thackeray Marsh about the Harling claim on Marsh Point and about the missing Harling Collection.

  She would not let him or Jonathan Harling sidetrack her with their inflammatory comments on some obscure historical fact. She wanted answers.

  When she had them, then she would figure out what to do about Win Harling.

  And find out what he meant to do about her.

  Cousin Thackeray wasn’t in the living room. She checked the kitchen, but he wasn’t there, either. She was getting really irritated now.

  “Thackeray?”

  Silence.

  Had he gone for a walk, too? Let them all go off, she thought. She’d be damned happy, living all alone on Marsh Point! Who needed two old men and one know-it-all, black-eyed rogue?

  She groaned. How the hell could she have fallen in love with J. Winthrop Harling? He made too much money. He’d had his life handed to him on a silver platter. He probably didn’t know anything about the Deerfield Massacre or the influence of covenant theology on American democracy.

  “Thackeray! Dammit, where are you?”

  She flounced upstairs to check the bathroom; surely he must have heard her, for all the racket she was making?

  The attic door was ajar.

  Creaking it open, Hannah stuck her head inside and squinted up the dark, steep staircase. She could smell the dust and mold. “Thackeray, are you up there?” she call
ed, lowering her voice for no particular reason.

  When there was no answer, she reached along the wall for a light switch, but found none. She didn’t relish walking up there in the dark. But if Cousin Thackeray was up there, surely he had a flashlight and was just off in some corner? And even if he didn’t, even if he wasn’t up there, what else—who else—could be?

  Bats, she thought. Spiders, cobwebs, mice.

  “Coward,” she muttered to herself and headed up.

  The steps creaked and the musty odor worsened as she climbed the steep staircase. She had never been up to the attic. It was unfinished, there was no rail or wall built up around the stairwell; as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see silhouettes of boxes and old furniture, but no beam of a flashlight. She was probably on a wild-goose chase, while Win and Jonathan and her cousin were all doing the real business of the day elsewhere.

  “Thackeray,” she called irritably, “are you up here?”

  A shuffling noise came from the far corner off to her right, then a strangled cry. Her cousin’s voice croaked, “Run, Hannah!”

  “Thackeray!”

  She lurched up the last three steps. The silhouette of a man emerged from behind a huge armoire. It wasn’t her tall, thin, elderly cousin. Hannah quickly grabbed whatever was at her feet—a soggy box of hats, it turned out—and heaved it at the figure. It went wide. She scrambled for a stack of old drapes and started heaving them, too, but in a moment the strange figure had her, one arm clamped firmly around her middle. She kicked. He cursed viciously.

  “What have you done with Thackeray?” she yelled. “Who are you? Help!”

  But with one last, violent curse, he threw her against the armoire. She hit it hard with her right shoulder and spun into the darkness, out of control, breaking her fall with her left arm and landing unceremoniously in a heap in the pile of drapes. Her entire body ached. She let loose a string of curses herself.

  “Thackeray, for God’s sake, get away!”

  She flung drapes at the figure behind her and leaped over the open stairwell to the other side of the attic, away from her cousin. Her pursuer followed. She could hear him breathing hard. She grabbed a ladder-back chair and shoved it into his path, knocking him off his feet.

  Thackeray Marsh slipped down the stairs.

  The man swore, scrambled to his feet and came after her again. “Bitch!”

  There was a small, dirty window at the far end of the attic that Hannah was eyeballing for size. Would she fit? Could she make it through before her attacker caught up with her?

  What happened if she did?

  What happened if she didn’t?

  She dodged behind a metal clothes closet and dived for the window, tripping over a rolled-up rug. Adrenaline kept her from feeling any pain, any fatigue. She refused to panic. She got back to her feet.

  Something to break the window... She needed something hard and within reach.

  An old cane. Perfect!

  Iron fingers closed around her left ankle and pulled her off her feet, sending her headlong. A heavy body landed on top of her. She felt the air going out of her lungs. Her right arm was twisted around to the small of her back, under him.

  “Don’t move, don’t talk. I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

  She nodded her understanding.

  And recognized his voice. The pieces of the puzzle fell together.

  Her captor was Preston Fowler, director of the New England Athenaeum, to whom she had confided so much. He took a deep breath, then laughed roughly. “I might want to do other things to you,” he said, stroking her hair with his free hand, “but not hurt you.”

  She kicked his shin as sharply as she could.

  He bore down upon her twisted arm, and it was all she could do not to cry out. “You just bought yourself some pain, Miss Marsh.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  “Don’t talk.”

  “Tell me!”

  He brought his mouth close to her ear, and she felt his breath against her cheek. “You’re my ticket to a million dollars.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Shut up.” He settled himself more firmly on top of her, sliding his free hand down her upper arm and just skimming her breast. “Just be quiet and still and nothing will happen to you.”

  She didn’t move, didn’t even breathe.

  “You see,” he said, “you’re my hostage.”

  * * *

  “WHERE THE DEVIL do you suppose he is?” Jonathan Harling asked.

  Win regarded him with growing exasperation, though the feeling was directed not so much toward his uncle as the situation. They had combed the point for any sign of Preston Fowler, but found only the canoe and a single footprint in the mud. Both, they decided, had to be his. It was too early for tourists, and they had no doubt that Preston Fowler very much wanted first crack at the Harling Collection and the Declaration of Independence.

  Win and his uncle headed back onto the deck off Thackeray’s dining room, figuring to tell the Marshes everything.

  “I don’t know where he is, but if—”

  Thackeray Marsh burst around the corner of the house, his thin hair sticking up, his face ashen. His clothes were covered with dust, and a cobweb dangled off one arm. He could hardly speak. “Hannah...the bastard’s got her...he...”

  A cold current shot through Win.

  “Calm down, man,” Uncle Jonathan ordered impatiently. “We can’t understand what in blazes you’re saying.”

  Win had understood. “Where?”

  Thackeray pointed to the house. “The attic...”

  It was all Win needed to hear.

  Behind him, Uncle Jonathan hissed in annoyance. “Now don’t go barging in up there before you get all the facts!” He pounded his cane on the ground. “Winthrop—Winthrop, we need a plan!”

  But Win was already through the French doors. He grabbed the poker from the living room fireplace and headed upstairs, the cold current now a hot rage.

  Fowler. If the stinking bastard even touched Hannah...

  He ripped open the door and took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the darkness. He thought only fleetingly about how Fowler might be armed, what he had planned. His main concern was Hannah.

  Hannah...

  At the top of the stairs he stopped and listened, let his eyes adjust to the lack of light. He heard nothing, could make out nothing that resembled Hannah or Fowler. Had the bastard already sneaked off with her?

  To his left he heard a soft moan.

  “Hannah?”

  Holding his poker high, he moved toward the sound. He had to fight his way through scattered drapes and past overturned furniture, but remained alert. The sun was angling in through the dirty window now, casting a faint light upon a figure that lay sprawled on what appeared to be a rolled-up carpet.

  It moved, and the sun hit strands of long, silken, blond hair.

  “Hannah,” Win breathed.

  Within seconds he was kneeling beside her, pulling a nasty-looking gag from her mouth, fumbling at the drapery cord that was tied around her wrists. Her eyes were huge and frightened, and damned beautiful.

  She spat dust and cobwebs from her mouth, coughing, and finally sputtered, “It’s a trap.”

  No sooner were the words out than Win felt something cold and metallic against his lower jaw. “Now I have two hostages,” Preston Fowler said.

  “Now,” Win said tightly, “you have one hell of a mess on your hands. Let us both go, before you get yourself in any deeper.”

  “You arrogant, insufferable prig.” Fowler laughed nastily, never moving the gun. “God, I’ve wanted to say those words to one of you for years. No, do not move, I warn you. As you have so accurately pointed out—as if I needed you to tell me—I�
�m in one hell of a mess. I intend, however, to emerge from it intact.”

  “He thinks Cousin Thackeray has the Harling Collection,” Hannah told Win hoarsely. “He wants the Declaration of Independence. He’s the one—” She had to pause to cough, so merciless had Fowler been in applying the gag. “He broke into your uncle’s apartment.”

  “I know,” Win responded gently. “I should have known from the beginning. He knew what you were working on. With your blond hair and reputation as a biographer, he probably figured out you were Hannah Marsh—Priscilla’s descendant—right from the start.”

  Fowler smirked. “It was a simple matter to blow her cover story straight to hell.”

  “So, he watched you, and knowing you were an expert researcher, he followed your leads to the Harling Collection....” Hannah shut her eyes, and Win could see pain and regret wash over her; it could be no worse than what he felt. He would give anything to see her smile. “Hannah, Uncle Jonathan knew it had to be Fowler who ransacked his apartment. Other than you, he was the only one who could have known about the diary or the Harling Collection.”

  “Oh, stop, both of you,” Fowler ordered. “Let’s get this over with. The Harling Collection, Miss Hannah. Where is it?”

  She shook her head, not, Win could see, for the first time, and said wearily, “I told you, I don’t know.”

  Keeping the gun pressed to Win’s jaw, Fowler leaned over him and said to Hannah, “Suppose I start blowing holes in your lover boy here? Do you think that would improve your memory?”

  Win made himself chuckle. “You’ve got that one wrong, Fowler. Give her the gun. She’ll blow holes in me herself.”

  “Shut up!”

  Win thought he heard a small, creaking sound on the attic stairs. Footsteps? Old men’s footsteps?

  Dear God, he thought.

  He looked at Hannah and saw her eyes widen slightly. Had she heard the creaking sound, too?

  Uncle Jonathan and Cousin Thackeray coming to rescue them.

  It was almost more than Win could bear.

  His fingers closed around the poker. One small opening was all he needed. He longed to knock Preston Fowler onto his greedy ass. But he had to cover for the two down on the staircase. Hannah, he noticed, was noisily shifting around.