A Murderous Marriage

by Alyssa Maxwell

  “This won’t kill him unless you fire point-blank.” Miss Blair reached into the box and lifted one of the pistols. She handed one to Eva. “Flare guns. They’ll blind and confuse him, and possibly leave him with some burns. But unless we fire directly at him at close range, he’ll live.” She gestured with her chin at the wrench Lady Julia held. “You keep that. Once we’ve fired the flares, you knock him out. He certainly deserves that.”

  Eva expelled a breath of relief, then remembered Mr. Mowbry had a gun of his own—one quite capable of killing. “We won’t have more than one chance to take him by surprise. My lady, you stay back until after we’ve fired.” Not that she planned to allow Lady Julia to get anywhere near Mr. Mowbry. Instead, she would seize the wrench from her and use it on him herself if necessary, but she saw no reason to mention that now.

  They crept to the outer door. Once again, Eva fought back the queasiness brought on by the swaying deck and envied the other two women, who seemed unaffected. She pushed the door open, and they stole outside. The roar of the engine filled her ears; its vibrations traveled through her legs and increased her sense of unsteadiness. The boat sped through the water, sending up a high, feathery spray behind them in the dark. The waves became choppier, and as they were making their way toward the wheelhouse ladder, a swell raised the boat and then dropped it into the hollow of a wave. They all stumbled, and Miss Blair’s flare gun clattered to the deck.

  “Who’s out there?” Mr. Mowbry’s head, minus his bowler, poked out from the wheelhouse. There was no time to hide. He saw them and ducked back into the wheelhouse. Before Eva could decipher his intentions and warn the other two to brace themselves, the boat took a sharp turn, then cut a wide arc. They were thrown to the rail, and the fallen flare gun skittered away into the darkness.

  Pulling herself along the rail, Eva attempted to fire her flare gun into the wheelhouse, but the boat arced yet again, once more throwing them off balance. A scream pierced the roar of the engines, followed by a splash . . . and cries for help. Terror caught Eva in a stranglehold. In all the noise, she couldn’t identify the voice. She looked all around her and spotted Lady Julia along the cabin’s outside wall, attempting to tug a life ring from its hook.

  Eva stumbled across the heaving deck to help her one-handedly, for in her other hand, she gripped the flare gun. Once the ring came loose, they returned to the rail.

  “Where is she?” Lady Julia shoved windblown hair out of her face. “I can’t see her.”

  “There!” Eva pointed at the water, where Miss Blair thrashed against the waves. She took the ring from Lady Julia and heaved it overboard, praying it would land close enough for Miss Blair to grasp it.

  “Can you swim?” Lady Julia shouted down to her.

  Eva didn’t wait to hear the answer. The vibrations beneath her feet had lessened, and the motor quieted. A quick glance out over the water showed no lights, no signs of other boats nearby. They were alone, and Mr. Mowbry had cut the engine. The only movement came from the swells tipping the boat this way and that, and Eva’s stomach with it. She wanted nothing more than to lean over the side and give in to the urgency of retching, of allowing spinning sensations to overwhelm her and swallow her whole. But if she did that . . .

  They would all die. Lady Julia would die.

  Mr. Mowbry swung out of the wheelhouse and onto the ladder. Eva wanted to yell to Lady Julia to run inside, to go where it was safe. But there was nowhere safe, and she didn’t dare utter a word, not with the barrel of Mr. Mowbry’s pistol staring straight into the heart of her most dire fears. She raised her flare gun, held her arm stiff, and braced it with her other hand. Though the engine had fallen silent, a roaring continued in her ears. Mr. Mowbry jumped down to the deck.

  “You’ll never fire on me, Miss Huntford. Not at this close range. You haven’t the stomach for it. Or the nerve. Not even with a flare gun. Yes, I see what you’ve got there. You might as well toss it away. I’ve no desire to hurt any of you. If you’d only minded your own business, none of us would be in this predicament right now.”

  “Lady Julia is my business, Mr. Mowbry. I wasn’t about to simply let you kidnap her.”

  “I’d never hurt her,” he said fiercely. “I’m no murderer, Miss Huntford, no matter what you may think. No matter what I’ve done. Gilbert Townsend and Hugh Fitzallen deserved what they got. It wasn’t murder. It was justice. They were guilty, but because the law refused to prosecute them, I had no choice.”

  “No choice but to become their judge, jury, and executioner,” Eva countered sharply.

  He came several strides closer. Eva heard a noise behind her but didn’t take her eyes off Mr. Mowbry long enough to find out what Lady Julia might be doing. She only hoped she was taking cover somewhere. That Mr. Mowbry still pointed his weapon at Eva brought her some measure of comfort. She didn’t doubt he might try to defuse the situation by grabbing Lady Julia and training his pistol on her. He had to know Eva would cease all attempts to oppose him then.

  “What is that compared to what they did?” he demanded. “I was away in France when it happened, serving men like them.” His voice rose, and suddenly Eva heard it—the Irish rhythm in his speech. It was subtle, more so than Miles’s, but there nonetheless. “My father and my younger brother remained at home, working the farm, trying to eke out enough to survive on what their English landlord allowed them to keep. They did nothing wrong. But when the arrests started happening, they were implicated. Tried, convicted, sent to England, to prison. Do you know what happened next, Miss Huntford?”

  “I . . . don’t know.” Though Eva feared that, in truth, she did know.

  “They died, both of them. Influenza. It raged through the prison. Do you know, Miss Huntford, who the landlord was that implicated them? That let them be dragged away with the others to eventually die? And do you know who ordered the transportation of those innocent men to England?”

  “Are you talking about the German Plot?”

  “Yes, indeed I am, Miss Huntford.”

  “Then the officials in the Dublin Castle administration were to blame.”

  “Hugh Fitzallen and Gilbert Townsend were to blame,” he shouted, the sound echoing over the water. He lurched closer, stumbling almost blindly. Eva somehow doubted he still saw her; no, he saw Sir Hugh and Lord Annondale. He saw his father and brother, and other innocent men. He saw injustice and his inability to stop it. He saw his revenge about to take place. He raised his pistol.

  Eva altered her aim. Trembling, tears blurring her vision, her blood traveling ice cold through her, she fired and was propelled backward from the thrust of the flare. Pops like drumbeats pierced her ears. Flames shot out, and smoke billowed. Through the haze, she saw Mr. Mowbry on the deck, rolling and screaming, his clothing on fire. She pushed onto her knees and attempted to stand. Behind her came running footsteps, and then Lady Julia rushed by her, holding something in her arms. What was it?

  Foamy fluid shot out, dousing the flames and soaking Mr. Mowbry’s clothes. They smoldered still, sending up wafts of steam and smoke. Soot and the sharp odor of gunpowder stung Eva’s nose and throat. She coughed violently, and then Lady Julia was beside her, helping her to her feet.

  “Eva, look!” She pointed out over the stern. A light shone on the water, cutting through the waves.

  As Eva watched, it moved closer, and then she heard the rumble of the motor. A cry returned her attention to Mr. Mowbry. He squirmed and writhed, and deep remorse struck her for having fired—not directly at him, for she’d shifted her arm at the last minute, but near enough. She wished she hadn’t had to. But when she kneeled beside him and attempted to assess his condition and offer words of comfort, she admitted to herself she would do exactly the same again.

  CHAPTER 21

  Phoebe stood at the bow of the police cutter and waved her arms wildly. She strained to see through the darkness and the smoke hovering over the smaller boat. Fear reduced her voice to raw shrieks. “Julia! Eva! We’re coming.”r />
  Soon the pilot cut the engine and allowed the cutter to drift toward the launch. That was when she saw, through the haze, Julia leaning over the rail and shouting something at them. A frantic splashing off their starboard side caught her attention, and she understood.

  “There’s someone in the water,” she called to Owen and Theo. A figure thrashed in the waves, though little but the surrounding white life ring was visible.

  Detective Inspector Lewis ordered the searchlights switched on, and soon they were able to make out Mildred Blair bobbing in the water. She stopped thrashing and collapsed against the ring from obvious exhaustion. Mr. Lewis dispatched two uniformed officers in a life raft to retrieve her.

  Within moments, the cutter had eased alongside the launch, and Detective Inspector Lewis instructed all on board to show themselves with their hands up. Phoebe saw only Eva and Julia, with no sign of Curtis Mowbry. Yet unless Eva and Julia had managed to throw him over the side, he must still be on board.

  “It could be a trap,” Phoebe cautioned Mr. Lewis. “Curtis Mowbry might be waiting to spring out on you and your men.”

  “I’ll handle this, Lady Phoebe. You and your friends are to stay back.”

  With her hands over her head, as instructed, Eva approached their port-side railing. “It’s all right. Mr. Mowbry’s been injured and is in no condition to cause any more mischief.”

  Mr. Lewis didn’t at first respond, but instead scrutinized Eva and assessed the situation. “Where is he?”

  “He’s here.” Eva lowered one hand to point. “He’s lying on the deck. I . . . I don’t think he’ll be getting up anytime soon.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Eva, put your hands down,” Julia said as she went to Eva’s side. She looked startled when she took in Phoebe and everyone else on board the police cutter.

  The officers had secured lines between the two boats, and now Theo, ignoring Mr. Lewis’s order to stay back, eagerly climbed over the two rails and onto the launch’s deck. In an instant, his arms were around Julia.

  “How on earth did you know where to find us?” Eva asked Phoebe some twenty minutes later, once the two boats were ready for the return trip to Cowes. She, Julia, Theo, and Miss Blair were now on the police cutter, while Curtis Mowbry and three of the police officers had remained on the launch.

  “Fox,” Phoebe replied succinctly. “He saw you leaving the hotel, and with Julia already missing, he decided to follow you. Once he saw what was happening, and with whom, he ran back to tell us. Inspector Lewis guessed Curtis Mowbry would choose this direction, heading into open waters sooner than if he had gone east. There would have been more boats off the coast of East Cowes that might have noticed something out of the ordinary.”

  Julia, listening in, raised her head from Theo’s shoulder. “For once, I don’t mind Fox being an annoying little nuisance.”

  “No, nor I,” Eva agreed with a rueful chuckle. “Who knows what would have happened otherwise.”

  “The boy’s a hero.” Theo tightened his hold on Julia. “I suppose we’ll have to be nicer to him from now on.”

  They shared quiet laughter over that and settled in for the trip back to Cowes. Phoebe snuggled against Owen’s side for the first few minutes, but seeing Mildred Blair sitting alone, still dripping and wrapped in a blanket, she rose and went to sit beside her.

  “Are you all right, Miss Blair?”

  The woman shrugged a shoulder, for a moment reminding Phoebe of Julia. “Are any of us all right after what’s happened?”

  “No, I suppose not. But you’ve been through a harrowing time, and if there’s anything I or my family can do for you, you must say so.”

  “That’s frightfully generous of you, Lady Phoebe.” An irony in Mildred Blair’s voice belied the sentiment. She turned her face away.

  Phoebe felt disregarded and dismissed, but she resisted the urge to walk off in a temper. “I do mean what I say.” Miss Blair continued to ignore her, and Phoebe returned to Owen.

  Detective Inspector Lewis seemed content to leave Eva, Julia, and Miss Blair alone during the return trip. But once they arrived in Cowes, he accompanied them back to the hotel and asked them to assemble once again in the meeting room. Before they did, however, he allowed Julia and Phoebe to speak with their grandparents and their younger siblings and assure them they were all right. Eva went with them and explained how she had stowed away on the launch, freed Julia and Mildred Blair, and wounded Curtis Mowbry with a flare gun.

  “Good heavens, Eva, we must never lose you,” Grampapa fervently declared in a voice whose former booming resonance had suddenly been restored. He seized her hands and looked about to swing her in circles, though he stopped short of doing so. “Whatever you need, ask. It shall be yours. Do your parents need anything?”

  “Thank you, Lord Wroxly. If there is ever anything, I’ll be sure to ask,” she said modestly.

  “You must never hesitate, my dear.”

  Grams thanked her profusely, too, and then, with a nod at Phoebe, Eva excused herself to give the family some quiet minutes alone with Julia.

  “We didn’t know what to think when you didn’t come back to the table,” Grams said to her, blinking to combat the tears. “And then Fox came running in, all breathless, and told us that horrible Mr. Mowbry had taken you away. We were so frightened we’d never get you back . . .”

  “I’m here now, Grams, and everything is all right.”

  Julia took the time to thank Fox, who blushed with pleasure and suffered her to embrace him. She did so quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

  “It’s my responsibility to see to my sisters’ welfare, isn’t it?” he said, with only the slightest display of self-importance.

  Julia laughed, the most lighthearted sound Phoebe had heard from her in months. “We’ll discuss that later,” Julia told him and then turned her attention to Grampapa. His initial relief and excitement at seeing Julia safely returned having waned, he possessed a pallor that made him appear years older. Julia reached out to touch his cheek in a rare show of tenderness. “I’m really all right, you know. I don’t think he ever had any intention of hurting me.”

  “Julia, I . . .” Their grandfather compressed his lips to contain the emotions he had rather not display. Phoebe understood, for to release those feelings would be to lose control of them, and he wished to be steadfast for them all, even now, when it was evident so much of his strength had left him. If he retained any vigor at all, it showed in the smile he summoned to put his grandchildren’s worries to rest.

  Amelia quietly waited her turn. Where Phoebe expected tears, Amelia showed a serene countenance. But she, too, had known danger in her young life. She understood, as did Phoebe and Eva, the fears and uncertainties Julia had faced. She hugged Julia tightly. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  Miss Blair had also been permitted to run up to her room to change out of her damp clothes. Once they had all returned downstairs and assembled in the meeting room, Mr. Lewis had news to tell them. “I’ve had a communication from the police station. Curtis Mowbry has a laceration across his left thigh. It appears partially healed, but apparently it has started bleeding again.”

  Eva gasped. “I’d noticed a slight limp, and when I inquired, he told me it was a war wound. I took him at his word. If only I had said something . . .”

  “These days there’s no reason to suspect any man claiming to have been wounded in battle,” the inspector assured her. “It appears Lord Annondale somehow managed to wound Mr. Mowbry before he died. Mr. Mowbry being so tall, it’s only logical that as he leaned to throw Lord Annondale overboard, he bled on the railing.”

  “Only logical,” Julia murmured and gave an ironic humph.

  “I apologize, Lady Annondale,” the inspector said somewhat ruefully, and she had the good grace to incline her head in acceptance. “Now then, tell me what happened out there. Miss Huntford, why don’t you go first?”

  Eva’s case was the most straightforward of the three—sh
e had boarded the launch voluntarily. But she related what Curtis Mowbry had revealed to her about his father and brother being caught up in the arrests surrounding the German Plot, and how he blamed Gil and Sir Hugh. Phoebe experienced growing sympathies for Mr. Mowbry—certainly for his family members—until she remembered nothing could possibly justify his heinous actions.

  Julia’s and Miss Blair’s stories were rather more complicated.

  “I was feeling rather peaky at dinner, as you might remember, Phoebe,” Julia said.

  Phoebe nodded, thinking her sister looked peaky now, as well. And then, with surprise, she noticed something else. Julia kept fussing with her left hand; she had put her wedding ring back on and was twisting it nervously round and round on her finger.

  Julia continued, “As soon as I’d stepped into the lobby, Mr. Mowbry approached me. He was all smiles at first and offered to accompany me outside. I told him no thank you. Feeling as I did, I wished for fresh air and wasn’t keen on having to make conversation. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and the next thing I knew, he’d gripped my arm, still smiling, and pressed something against my side that bit into my ribs.”

  She paused, and Theo leaned closer to her and covered her hand—the one bearing Gil’s ring—with his own. Had he noticed she’d resumed wearing the piece? And what did it mean? Was it merely a formality that Julia, as a married woman—albeit widowed—felt obligated to uphold?

  “After that,” Julia said, “he walked me outside and hurried me to the pier and onto the boat he’d hired. Almost as revolting as being held at gunpoint was his declaration that he and I would be married as soon as we reached the Continent. He was in love with me, you see.”

  That revelation nearly knocked Phoebe out of her chair. “In love with you? How can that be?”

  “Because he’d been obsessed with me since the summer of nineteen eighteen, when Henry paid him to follow me—”

  “What is this?” the inspector interrupted.

  “It’s a long story,” Julia said calmly. She exchanged a glance with Theo and gave a slight shrug. “Henry Leighton, Theo Leighton’s brother, fancied he would be my husband someday. But that summer he grew suspicious that I was seeing another man—which I wasn’t. As I said, it’s a long story. But he hired Mr. Mowbry, apparently, to follow me about and take photographs in an attempt to catch me in the act. That’s why he seemed so familiar to me,” she said in an aside to Phoebe. “Ever since then, Mr. Mowbry has been monitoring my activities in the society columns. Once he saw I was to marry Gil—” Here she faltered slightly, frowning down at her ring, before she swallowed and went on. “Once he saw that, he realized he could have me and his revenge against Gil and Hugh at the same time.”