Bewitching: His Secret Agenda

by Carla Neggers

  “Can I untie her wrists?” Win asked.

  “No, leave them. She’s a vicious bitch, you know. Practically emasculated me. I’m sure you’re disappointed she didn’t succeed. But I won’t be diverted from my task. The Harling Collection, Miss Marsh.”

  Behind them, Jonathan Harling’s voice broke through the darkness. “It isn’t hers to give away.”

  Then Thackeray Marsh said, “Drop the gun, Mr. Fowler. I have a loaded Colt .45 pointed at your lower spine and would be glad to pull the trigger to repay you for the thrashing you gave me alone.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Fowler sneered.

  “So, call my bluff. Find out what happens.”

  “He’s a mean shot,” Uncle Jonathan said. “He taught me how to shoot when we were at Harvard together. I remember he could hit a weasel from fifty yards, right between the eyes—”

  “I can blow your nephew’s head off,” Fowler interjected.

  Thackeray sniffed. “Go ahead. He’s a Harling. I’ll get a bullet into you before you get to Hannah.”

  Win’s eyes locked with Hannah’s. He could see she realized her cousin was having a hell of a time.

  “Drop the gun,” Thackeray Marsh drawled. “Slowly.”

  He seemed to be taking his lines from old Clint Eastwood movies, but Fowler, biting back what sounded like a curse, removed the gun from Win’s jaw and slowly lowered it to the floor.

  “Bastards,” he muttered, “all of you.”

  Then he whipped around, roaring like a madman, catching everyone by surprise; he shoved the two old men aside and leaped for the stairs.

  “Shoot him!” Uncle Jonathan yelled. “Shoot the greedy bastard!”

  “I can’t bloody see him! I’m not twenty anymore, you know, you old snot. Why the hell don’t you go after him?”

  “I’m eighty years old!”

  “So? I’m seventy-nine.”

  “Take care of Hannah,” Win growled. “I’ll go after him. Mind if I borrow your gun, Thackeray?”

  “Not at all, but you’d better take care. It’s not loaded.”

  Win forced himself to refrain from comment.

  “If you hadn’t gone off like a decapitated chicken,” Uncle Jonathan put in, “we’d have been able to take time to load the gun. As it was, Thackeray couldn’t remember where he’d put the bullets. In fact, he’d almost forgotten he even had the gun. I had to remind him....”

  “The hell with it,” Win muttered and dashed off with the poker. Maybe Fowler hadn’t loaded his gun, either.

  He fought his way through the scattered drapes and overturned furniture, choking on cobwebs and dust, warning himself not to let his anger lead him into another trap. With a near-physical effort, he dismissed the image of Hannah bound and gagged. It must have been a devastating experience for her. And it was all his fault. Would she ever be the same? Would she ever forgive him for not having shared his suspicions sooner?

  No. You’ll have to deal with that later.

  Fowler had shut the attic door. Win pushed against it, but it wouldn’t give. The bastard must have blocked it. He reared back and threw all his weight at the old door. It bounced and cracked a little, but still didn’t give.

  “Here,” Hannah said, suddenly beside him, as pale as a ghost, “let me help.”

  Win saw the raw, bloody wrists, the spreading bruise on her jaw, and felt rage boil up inside him, threatening once again to overwhelm him.

  Then he saw the gun in her hand.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  She smiled a little. “Fowler’s gun.”

  Win grinned, suddenly reenergized. He pointed a thumb at the door and smiled at Hannah. “Shall we?”

  She set the gun upon a step, and Win turned it so it wasn’t pointed at either of them. He was taking no more chances.

  Uncle Jonathan and Cousin Thackeray appeared at the top of the stairs. “Heave-ho!” they yelled.

  It took Hannah and Win three tries, and the door splintered into three parts before the chair Fowler had anchored under the knob gave way.

  They were out.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HANNAH IGNORED THE PAIN in her wrists and shoulders, her dry mouth, her fear. She concentrated only on keeping up with Win and trying not to shoot him or herself in the foot. Guns were not her thing.

  They caught up with Fowler in Cousin Thackeray’s truck. He must have snatched the keys from the hook by the back door; he was still fumbling with them when Win hauled him out of the cab and threw him onto the ground. Hannah controlled a wild impulse to fire the gun into the air.

  “All right, all right!” Fowler yelled when Win twisted his arms behind his back. “I give up. Call the damned police.”

  Breathing hard, Win didn’t let up. “You won’t try anything?”

  “Like what, running? You lunatics would shoot me like a dog.” He spat a mouthful of grass and dirt. “Just let me go. I’ll take what’s coming to me.”

  “You’re damned right you will.”

  Fowler glanced at Win, who still held his prisoner’s arms pinned behind him. “I wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”

  Hannah could see Win gritting his teeth. “You did hurt someone.”

  “She’s a Marsh. One wouldn’t think a Harling would go all soft over—”

  He shut up when Hannah stepped forward, holding his gun. “One wouldn’t think,” she said, “a snooty Harling could knock you on your behind, either, but look at you now, Mr. Fowler.”

  “It’s Doctor Fowler,” he said loftily.

  Win made a sound of pure disgust and let up, climbing to his feet. He looked at Hannah. “I’ll call the police. You can keep an eye on him?”

  “Sure. With pleasure.”

  Fowler sat up, his face red with anger, devoid of remorse. That was as far as Hannah would let him go. After her ordeal in the attic, she was taking no chances. But just as Win started for the house, they heard the wail of a siren, and Cousin Thackeray and Uncle Jonathan raced out of the back door, armed to the teeth with kitchen knives and skillets. They looked as if they were having the time of their lives.

  “I’ve called the police,” Thackeray announced.

  “They’re on their way,” Jonathan added excitedly.

  Fowler looked at his four captors and muttered, “Thank God.”

  The police came, explanations were made, and Preston Fowler was carted off. Charges were filed and the sorting-out process was begun. Through it all, Hannah noticed that Cousin Thackeray never once allowed that the Harlings and the director of the New England Athenaeum might be correct in their opinion that he knew the location of the long-missing Harling Collection.

  She also noted that Win Harling never left her side.

  The police seemed to be having a difficult time fathoming why a director of a prestigious institution like the New England Athenaeum would risk arrest to snatch a collection of old papers, even one that might include a valuable copy of the Declaration of Independence.

  “How valuable?” the lieutenant in charge asked the group of people assembled in his small office.

  The Marshes didn’t answer. The Harlings, however, said, “A million dollars, give or take ten thousand or so.”

  The lieutenant, a rail-thin Maine native, whistled. “But there’s no proof this thing exists?”

  “None whatsoever,” Thackeray Marsh replied, although the question wasn’t directed at him.

  Win smiled at Hannah, but said nothing. Then his gaze fell upon her bruised and raw wrists and his smile vanished, his expression darkening. The police had asked her if she needed medical attention, but she’d said no, largely because she didn’t want to miss the Harlings’ explanation of the day’s festivities.

  “And this Fowler character,” the lieutenant
went on, “learned about the collection—and presumably the Declaration of Independence—when Miss Marsh here was conducting research in Boston?”

  “They weren’t in cahoots,” Thackeray put in.

  “That’s not what I was implying. I’m merely trying to establish the sequence of events. Miss Marsh, we’ll need a statement from you on your trip to Boston and your association with Dr. Fowler.”

  “Certainly. I had no idea he would go to such extremes for personal profit. I myself had only an academic interest in the collection.”

  An eyebrow went up and the lieutenant asked, “Even though the subject of your new biography is one of your ancestors, who was wrongly executed by an ancestor of the Harlings?”

  She smiled coolly. “Even so.”

  Jonathan Harling gave a small grunt that she managed to ignore.

  Beside her, Win said, “Fowler broke into my uncle’s apartment in an attempt to discover any materials that would provide him with a clue as to the location of the Harling Collection. He stole a diary written by—”

  Win’s elderly uncle cleared his throat and squirmed in his rickety wooden chair. “That’s not quite the case. Fowler did break into my apartment, of course, and combed the place, but he didn’t steal the diary. He just read it.”

  “He read it,” the lieutenant repeated dubiously.

  “That’s right. It describes how the Marshes hoodwinked us out of our land here in southern Maine and stole the Harling Collection.”

  Thackeray was on his feet now. “It was never your land! The Marshes are the legitimate owners of Marsh Point and have been for a hundred years!”

  The lieutenant sighed. “Could we stick to current history? The diary, Mr. Harling. You say it was never missing?”

  “That’s right. I only claimed it was gone to keep my nephew on the case. He and Miss Marsh...well, their relationship was about to go sour unless Winthrop did something, and I felt he was of a mind to do nothing at all, and therefore...”

  Hannah could feel Win stiffening beside her and smiled. His uncle, she thought, was every bit as exasperating as her cousin. “I wouldn’t,” he said, “have done nothing.”

  Jonathan Harling shrugged. “Couldn’t take that chance, m’boy.”

  The lieutenant continued. “How do you know Fowler read the diary?”

  “Common sense,” Jonathan replied simply.

  Thackeray snorted. “A damned good guess is what it was.”

  “If you knew the Harlings knew the Marshes had the Harling Collection,” the lieutenant asked, “why didn’t they come after it before now?”

  “We didn’t know. Anne Harling was an eccentric and...well, she didn’t care for the Marshes. She was aware of their grudge against our family and—”

  “You—meaning the Harling family—didn’t take her accusations seriously,” the lieutenant supplied.

  The elderly Harling pursed his lips and remained silent.

  Hannah noticed a ghost of a smile on Win’s face and felt a rush of pure affection for him.

  “But Preston Fowler did,” the lieutenant went on. “What made you suspect him?”

  Jonathan squirmed.

  “Tell him,” his nephew ordered.

  The old man grimaced. “I didn’t think—I didn’t believe Hannah, although a Marsh, was capable of ransacking my apartment. I knew my nephew didn’t do it, and I knew I didn’t do it.”

  “Why not a random thief?”

  “Impossible.”

  His tone was so supercilious and dismissive that even the lieutenant didn’t argue. He proceeded with his questioning, finally sending them all home with orders to stick around, because he was sure to need further clarifications. They began to head back toward the house.

  “By the way, Thackeray,” the officer said to his retreating fellow townsman, “what’s this about you holding a gun on Fowler? Seems to me you don’t have a weapon registered.”

  It was Jonathan Harling who spun around and replied, “Thackeray Marsh hold a gun on anyone? Don’t be absurd. That old buzzard couldn’t shoot a hole through the side of a barn at fifty feet.”

  “But you all said...”

  “A ruse, Lieutenant, a simple ruse.”

  Then Jonathan marched out, shoulders thrust back, as if he’d made perfect sense and hadn’t told a huge lie. For once Thackeray didn’t contradict him.

  Win seized Hannah by the waist. “I just know those two are both going to live to be a hundred,” he muttered.

  Back at the house, Thackeray rattled around in the kitchen and emerged with cups of hot tea laced with brandy and insisted they all drink up. For once, no one argued.

  “Are you certain you don’t want a doctor to examine your wounds?” Jonathan Harling asked Hannah.

  She shook her head. “I’ll be fine, thanks.”

  “It’s a wonder Winthrop permitted Fowler to leave the property relatively intact.”

  Only the darkening of Win’s eyes indicated he concurred with his uncle. All things considered, he was being remarkably untalkative. He never, however, left Hannah’s side.

  “Winthrop, hell,” she said spiritedly. “It’s a wonder I let him leave intact. Did he hurt you at all, Cousin Thackeray?”

  “Only my pride. I have never done anything so difficult as leaving you in the clutches of that man, but I knew he had a gun, and I would be of no use to you, dead or maimed.” He swirled around a mouthful of tea and then swallowed; gradually his face regained its color. “He sneaked into the house while Win and Jonathan were off plotting. You had gone, and I’m afraid he took me quite by surprise. Clearly he had no idea the Harlings were about. He thought he would just have to contend with Hannah and me. Of course, we would have managed.”

  Jonathan Harling opened his mouth, but his nephew cut him off before he could speak. “I’m glad things worked out.”

  “I just have one more question,” Hannah said, her gaze taking in both old men. “You two were at Harvard together?”

  Thackeray’s face took on a look of pure distaste and Jonathan’s matched it.

  “Cousin Thackeray, you never told me you attended Harvard!”

  “I’m not proud of it,” he stated.

  “He graduated magna cum laude,” Jonathan Harling added. “Damned near killed my father, having a Marsh outdo a Harling, but I wasn’t much of a student in those days. I reached my potential later, in graduate school. Thackeray had gone back to Maine by then, intent on being a Marsh.”

  Thackeray nodded. “Jonathan and I should have been great friends.”

  “And were for a while,” his former classmate reminisced wistfully. He grabbed the brandy and splashed more into Thackeray’s teacup, then into his own. “To our lost youth, my friend.”

  They drank up.

  Win leaned toward Hannah and whispered, “Don’t believe any of this. Uncle Jonathan’s just leading up to demanding what in hell your cousin’s done with the Harling Collection.”

  Sure enough, a few minutes later, Jonathan Harling leaned back, looking smug and content. “So, Thackeray, where have you had my family’s papers hidden all these years?”

  * * *

  WIN FILLED HANNAH’S tub with water as hot as he thought she could stand it and added white bath salts from a glass bottle. He had piled two fluffy white towels on the edge of the tub, where he sat, watching the water foam. He had abandoned Uncle Jonathan to dinner with Thackeray Marsh. The two would, no doubt, argue about the Harling Collection well into the night or perhaps reminisce about their days at Harvard. One simply never knew with those two, Win had decided.

  “Going to take a bath?” Hannah asked, appearing in the bathroom doorway.

  He shook his head. “You are.”

  She half smiled. “By your order?”

  “It’ll b
e good for your bumps and bruises.”

  And her spirits, he hoped. Since returning to her cottage she had been uncharacteristically reticent, and her skin, though normally pale, seemed almost ghostlike now. He had left her standing in front of her picture window, staring at the sea, while he filled the tub. A gulf had opened between them. He sensed it, hated it, but didn’t know what to do about it.

  He turned off the water. The silence that surrounded them felt damned unbearable. He felt Hannah’s luminous eyes on him. He turned to meet them. “Are you going to be all right?”

  She nodded, saying nothing.

  “It was a hell of a scare, Hannah, for all of us. You just got the worst of it.”

  She nodded again. He rose from the tub and started past her, but she touched his arm, just a whisper of her fingers. “When Fowler had me pinned down...” She stopped and cleared her throat. Win could see the pain in her eyes, a pain that had nothing to do with cuts and bruises. “I wanted you to come, Win. It scares me how much. I’ve always been so independent.”

  “You still are,” he assured her, then gestured to the tub. “Relax for as long as you want. Call me if you need anything.”

  And he left.

  * * *

  HANNAH SOAKED IN THE TUB until her skin was as pink as a lobster’s, but couldn’t boil J. Winthrop Harling out of herself. The hot water swirling around her only served to remind her of how much she still wanted him.

  Fatigue weighed down her eyelids, while stress and the heat of the water made her feel drained and limp, without energy or purpose. She wanted only to sleep and when she woke up, to find that her life on Marsh Point was as it had been before she’d gone to Boston. Except that it wouldn’t be, couldn’t be...and if it meant losing Win, she didn’t want it to be the same as before. She knew that.

  Such contradictions! She groaned at her own confusion and climbed out of the tub, the stiffness in her joints and muscles eased for the moment. She toweled off, pulled her terry-cloth robe from the hook where she kept it and wrapped it around her. Her reflection in the steamy mirror made her wince.