by Clee, Adele
Anger erupted. “Then why borrow money from him?”
“It was a gaming debt,” he snapped. “I had no other way of paying. Blame your father. He’s the one who brought me to London, thought it would be good for me to experience life in the metropolis while Margaret cared for you.” He gave a contemptuous snort. “Now, look at us.”
Mr Cole said Manning was known for his extortionate interest rates, which increased substantially the longer the debt was left unpaid.
“You cannot blame my father for your weaknesses.”
“I wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for him.”
A few things occurred to her all at once. If he’d borrowed money, he would have given Mr Manning his address. If Manning had an address, he could have easily traced her uncle to Rochester. So the debt must have been paid. But it couldn’t have been paid with the loot stolen from the attack because Mr Coulter found that.
“You cannot blame my father,” she repeated, but tears were already welling as she contemplated what her uncle had done. “He was conscientious, diligent, made a will naming my aunt as beneficiary because he knew she would always take care of me.”
“Like a lamb to the slaughter, he left me alone in that iniquitous den. They pounced within seconds of him leaving the tables. Goaded me to bid more, play harder, questioned my integrity.”
Seasoned gamblers knew how to play against weak, arrogant men.
“But you found a way to settle the debt.” Bile bubbled up to her throat. The realisation she had lived with a murderer all these years made her want to scrub her skin till it bled. “Didn’t you?”
The truth would come at a price.
It meant Uncle John would have to do away with her, too.
“Manning told you?” Panic flashed in his eyes. His face turned ashen, and his hands shook so violently she feared he would accidentally press the trigger.
Oh, her heart was breaking, yet she managed to say, “Mr Manning enjoys seeing his victim’s face contorted in pain. When I told him I was Henry Watson’s daughter, he couldn’t wait to torture me with the truth.”
John Sands scrubbed his hand down his face. Beads of sweat formed on his brow, though it was so cold in the carriage her fingers and toes were numb.
“I don’t know what he said, but it wasn’t my fault.”
“He said it was your idea.”
“To steal valuables, not shoot the occupants. I met Manning the day your father came to town to question the countess.” He stared at a point above her head, lost in the memory of the past. “Told him I had a plan to get the money, told him I intended to follow your father home and rob his wealthy clients.”
The mind was a powerful thing. She wanted to crumple to the carriage floor and cry until there were no more tears left to shed. But the logical part of her brain kept firing questions, constructing possibilities.
Two men held up the coach. Two men fired.
One man was nervous. One man had no conscience.
Had John Sands and Mr Manning committed this evil act together?
“But Mr Manning had another plan,” she said, testing her theory.
The pathetic man trembled in his seat. He covered his mouth with his hand and made a weak, wailing sound. But no tears came. No apology. No pleas for the Lord’s forgiveness.
“When Manning told me what I owed with the added interest, I’d have had to rob Coutts bank to clear the debt.”
“And so you remembered that my father had named Aunt Margaret as his beneficiary.” A tear slid down her cold cheek. “Claiming his property and selling the house was your only option. Manning accompanied you on your quest. You shot my father, shot a devoted couple in front of their young son.”
A sob caught in her throat.
A pain ripped through her heart.
For Dante D’Angelo.
The victims were in a better place, but life was a form of purgatory, and Dante was the only one suffering.
“Good God! I didn’t shoot those poor people. Manning did. The man’s a blood-thirsty loon. He shot them for the thrill. Would have shot the boy, too, had I not intervened. I saved that boy.”
And when Dante finally caught up with him, he’d wish he hadn’t.
“You killed my father for money?” Beatrice clutched her abdomen and rocked in an attempt to ease her pain. “I’ve lived with you all these years and never knew.” She felt physically sick. “Did Aunt Margaret know?”
“Do you think I wanted to kill Henry? I told Manning I’d changed my mind, but the devil said he’d shoot Henry if I didn’t.” He reached across the narrow space and tried to grab her hand, but Beatrice jerked her arm away. “Manning would have killed us both had I not fired the shot. Then he would have come for you and Margaret, taken everything.”
“So you killed my father to save me? Am I to embrace you as the hero?” Anger gave her a sudden burst of strength. “Did Aunt Margaret know?”
“We were trying to protect—”
“Did she know!” Beatrice yelled.
“Yes, she knew!” he shouted just as loud. “She knew, but her only thoughts were for you.”
And that was why Aunt Margaret rescued a few measly notes and hid them in the chest. She could not meet her maker without leaving a clue that might lead to the truth. But after years of being controlled by John Sands, she’d lacked the courage to make a full confession. Instead, she had left it all to fate.
The hackney stopped at a turnpike next to the Green Man coaching inn. Beatrice had to push all emotions aside and focus on making her escape. She was the only person who knew the truth about Manning, and John Sands would likely shoot her than risk her telling Dante the tale.
The road narrowed slightly after the turnpike, leading them past a patchwork of fields and farmland. One could smell the nauseating stench of the tanneries banking the meadow, could see the men at work in the grey stone building in the distance.
“Where are we going?” she asked nicely—survival being her priority, not vengeance.
“To a place where Manning’s men won’t find us. Now he’s told you the truth, he’ll kill us both, and so our only hope is to flee to France.”
“France?”
“We’ll be safe there. I’ll protect you. We can get back to how things used to be after Margaret died.” He spoke as if he had not committed a heinous crime. Not murdered her father in cold blood.
En route, there’d be many opportunities to slip away. But the carriage creaked to a halt at an inn further along the road—the Nelson’s Head.
“Why have we stopped?”
Two men in aprons, their shirt-sleeves rolled to their elbows despite it being late autumn, approached along the lane and entered the inn. It would be easy to attract their attention once inside.
“I hired a post-chaise in Rochester to bring me to London. Paid the driver to wait here for my return. He’ll take us home and then on to Dover. I paid O’Shea a ridiculous sum to ferry me around town these last two days, but his duties end here.”
Two days? Then he had followed them to London after the meeting at the Falstaff inn. Indeed, she realised he wore the same clothes, not the same arrogant grin.
He waved the pistol at her. “Wait inside the coach until I return. O’Shea’s been instructed to shoot you if you attempt to leave.” He alighted, left her alone with her thoughts.
What a shame she didn’t have her pocket pistol, but she had left it with Mr Bower. Weapons were not allowed through the doors of Newgate. Still, for Dante’s sake, she would test O’Shea’s mettle. The fool wouldn’t risk the noose to kill a stranger.
Would he?
Chapter 20
Bower’s note had arrived thirty minutes after Miss Trimble had given her emotional statement, brought by a boy in a hackney who’d been promised a sovereign if he delivered it safely. Bower’s instructions were clear. Cross London Bridge, take the Kent Road and head towards Rochester.
Rochester? John Sands was a damn fool. That’s the firs
t place anyone would look. Which meant he was stopping for supplies—clean clothes and money—before heading south to Dover. Good. Being an hour behind, they would catch him at the house.
During the agonising wait in Hart Street, Miss Trimble repeated Manning’s words verbatim. Dante couldn’t believe Beatrice had taken it upon herself to confront the moneylender. He should have been livid, but he understood the clawing need to uncover the truth. Daventry had expressed his own fury, a fury directed at Sir Malcolm for putting the case against Manning before the life of an agent.
And so they’d commanded the use of Sloane’s carriage, were rattling at breakneck speed along the muddy thoroughfare, had made ground by taking Waterloo Bridge and meeting the Kent Road in Walworth. By Dante’s calculation, they were now only thirty minutes behind Bower. Assuming he hadn’t stopped or taken a detour.
Dante glanced at the passing fields while seized by a sense of foreboding. The sun had dipped just below the horizon. Vibrant streaks of gold and red lit the sky. But soon darkness would swamp his world—just like it had on that lonely road in Hampshire.
Ashwood, Cole and Sloane sat in silence, their large frames squashed inside the conveyance. Daventry sat atop the box with Turton. He’d sworn never to lose an agent again. Swore no man or woman would ever die on his watch.
“We’ll find her,” Sloane said, “alive and well.”
Dante glanced at Sloane. “Shoot me if we don’t.”
The panic, the pain, must have been evident in his eyes.
“You’re in love with her,” Ashwood stated, his sigh tinged with relief.
“I cannot bear the thought of living without her,” he choked. “I cannot bear the thought of going home to an empty house, of not seeing her wearing her ridiculous trousers, swigging foul brandy.”
When Cole frowned, Sloane said, “Miss Sands uses various tactics to pull our friend out of the doldrums. Vinegar posing as brandy being one of them.”
“She’s clearly in love with you,” Ashwood said. “She’s done everything in her power to help you find the devil who shot your parents.”
“She’s the most incredible woman I’ve ever met.” Dante covered his eyes with his hand for a moment before sucking in a sharp breath and letting anger overcome his fear. “I’ll kill that bastard if he’s hurt her.”
Based on Miss Trimble’s account, John Sands was the fox in the warren. No doubt he feared Manning had told Beatrice the truth, hence why he’d kidnapped her outside Newgate. Silencing her had to be his motive. And yet the clod had left Miss Trimble behind.
They stopped at the turnpike. Dante lowered the window, tried to ignore the foul stench emanating from the tannery some distance behind the tollhouse, and listened to Daventry’s conversation with the collector.
“Have you seen anything unusual?” Daventry continued sharply. “The woman is being held against her will.”
The middle-aged fellow pushed his fingers under his hat and scratched his head. “Only the hackney coach. They don’t often come this far from town, but he must have dropped his passengers at the Nelson’s Head ’cause he came back the ways ten minutes ago.”
“With an empty coach?”
“It looked empty. Oh, and there was that burly fellow who said he was in a rush. Complained he’d had to stop while the shepherd herded sheep across the road. And I had to make him wait at the gate as I was desperate for a piddle.”
Burly fellow? Perhaps he meant Bower.
“Where’s the Nelson’s Head?”
The collector pointed. “Just along the road.”
Daventry thanked him, and Turton paid the toll.
The fellow moved to open the gate, but the crack of a gunshot in the distance had him practically jumping out of his frayed coat.
“Lord Almighty!” the collector cried, clutching his hat to his head.
Dante’s heart stopped, but somehow he pushed the carriage door open and vaulted to the ground. He raced to the gate, knocked the collector aside, and squeezed through the narrow walkway for pedestrians.
Daventry followed behind, as did Sloane, Ashwood and Cole.
“The shot came from across the meadow, near the windmill,” Daventry said before instructing Ashwood and Cole to visit the Nelson’s Head and make enquiries there. “I’ll not have us all tearing across fields when Miss Sands might be at the inn.”
But Dante took to his heels, regardless. Every fibre of his being told him to head to the windmill. The collector said the hackney had passed through ten minutes earlier. Beatrice would have escaped at the first opportunity.
Daventry and Sloane charged across the meadow, slipping and sliding on the sodden ground, but neither man was as fast as Dante. It was his life hanging in the balance. His love trying to escape a murdering fiend.
Dante crossed the first field—twenty yards ahead of Daventry—vaulted the low stone wall and darted towards the mill. The white slatted sails creaked with each revolution, the leisurely rotations at odds with the violent churning in Dante’s stomach.
The gate leading to the mill was open. Some distance to the right stood a horse and cart, split sacks of grain littering the ground. The horse must have bolted upon hearing the shot. Indeed, there was another full grain sack on the tree-lined drive, abandoned by an equally fearful fellow.
Dante gestured for Sloane and Daventry to keep out of sight, scout the area.
Sloane pulled a knife from a sheath hidden inside his boot and indicated he would go left. There wasn’t a man in London as skilled with a blade.
All was quiet, except for the rustle of the wind, the creak of the sails and the faint grinding of the millstone. Had it not been for the deserted sacks, Dante might have cursed his mistake and darted back to the Nelson’s Head. But then he heard someone whisper his name from behind the hedgerow at the end of the drive.
Bower peered above the shrubbery and pointed to the open mill door.
Dante edged closer.
“Miss Sands ran into the mill, sir,” Bower whispered. “The devil followed her. He’s got a pistol, but I don’t think he means to kill her. I shot him, nicked him on the shoulder, but I’ve brought nothing with me to reload.” He pointed to a cottage on the right. “The miller and his family are hiding there.”
“Does he have a single barrel or a side-by-side?”
“Looked like a single barrel.”
Good. John Sands had but one shot.
Dante told Bower to remain outside, then crept towards the three stone steps leading into the mill. Grain sacks lined the walls of the entrance. Spots of blood left a trail all the way to the meal bin.
Dante stopped. Listened. Heard nothing but the ominous whirring of cogs and the grinding of stones.
He fought the urge to call out, to tell Beatrice not to worry, and proceeded to climb the wooden staircase to the next level.
But there was no sign of John Sands there. No sign of a coward cowering in the corner. The blood trail led to another flight of stairs, and it was clear he’d taken Beatrice to the upper gallery, an exterior balcony used by the miller when he needed to climb the sails and adjust the cloths.
Tension coiled in Dante’s stomach. One slip from the gallery and a man would plunge eighty feet to his death. Still, there was nowhere else to hide, so the devil must have climbed to the top.
The sky was more dark grey than blue, with just a thin gold band clinging to the horizon. The wind ruffled Dante’s hair. The sharp nip in the air pinched his cheeks. A quick look over the railings was enough to test a man’s sea legs.
Bower was on his feet below, Sloane beside him, calling and pointing to a spot out of Dante’s view.
“I know you’re there, you murdering bastard,” Dante shouted. “Only one of us will make it down alive. I suggest you show yourself so we can get this over with.”
Dante saw a mud-splattered boot first, then a leg and a body as John Sands edged his way around the balcony, his back flush with the pointed roof.
“It wasn’t me!”
the blackguard cried, clutching his injured shoulder with one hand, holding his pistol in the other. “I didn’t shoot your parents. Manning did.”
Manning? The comment struck Dante like a blow to the back, taking him by surprise, knocking the air from his lungs. It took a few seconds for him to gather his wits. And then the scene appeared in a vision before him: John Sands and Manning, two mismatched men astride mismatched beasts.
A host of questions bombarded his mind, along with the sudden realisation that he cared about one thing, one thing only.
“I’m not here to avenge my parents. I’m here to avenge my wife.”
Sands looked confused. “Wife?”
“Where’s Beatrice?”
“Wife!”
“Damn you! Where is she!” Panic, black and blinding, pushed to the surface. “If you’ve hurt her, I shall gut you like a fish. Ensure it’s a slow, painful death.”
But John Sands was just as alarmed. “Wife! You’ve sullied my little Bea?” He raised a shaky hand and aimed his pistol. “No. You can’t be married. No. You’ll not take her from me, do you hear?”
The twisted degenerate cocked his weapon. Based on his flared nostrils and bulging eyes, it was more than a threat. He meant to shoot.
But Dante had dealt with more terrifying men than this miscreant. They did not follow Ring Rules at the White Boar. A man might take a kick to the teeth if he took his eye off the game. And so one learnt to fight like the rogues on the street.
Indeed, with a perfectly timed flick of the leg, Dante knocked the pistol from John Sands’ hand, watched it fly over the wooden railings and land on the ground.
“Now I’ve evened the odds, I’ll let you have the first hit.”
John Sands lunged, threw a weak punch Dante caught in his fist.
“I shall break every one of your fingers,” Dante said, crunching the man’s bones. “What have you done with her? Tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know.” He wailed in pain and crumpled to his knees. “She ran inside the mill, but I’ve not seen her since.”
“Get up!” Dante grabbed Sands’ cravat and hauled him to his feet. He had to find Beatrice and would hand this devil over to Daventry. “I’m taking you into custody for the murders of Henry Watson and Daphne and Alessandro D’Angelo.”