An Heir of Uncertainty (26 page)

Chapter Twenty

There is a pleasure in being mad which none but madmen know.

—John Dryden

He’d walked into an ambush. Well, he could kick himself for that later. Right now, he had to know whether Lina was all right.

He glanced at Miss Douglass and said as coolly as he could, “You wrote that note, telling me to meet Lina in her room?”

“My penmanship looks a great deal like my sister’s. I knew you wouldn’t suspect.” She smiled coldly. “How did you figure out I was responsible?”

She wasn’t going to shoot him until she learned the answer to that question, of that much he was confident. He leaned down and set two fingers on Lina’s wrist. Thank God. Her pulse was slow and weak, but she was alive.

He faced her sister. Perhaps he could keep her talking until he could find an opening to take the pistol away. “I didn’t, actually, at least not until a quarter of an hour ago. At the time I sent your sister my message, I was under the mistaken impression Freddie was the poisoner.”

She raised one eyebrow. “Your brother? Why would you think that?”

“That bottle of hydrocyanic acid? You put it in the wrong Vaughan’s greatcoat pocket.”

The look of cool confidence Miss Douglass was wearing slipped for a moment. “You know about that?”

“Yes. I’ve no doubt you meant for someone else to find it—Mr. Channing or Dr. Strickland, in all likelihood—but I stumbled on it by accident.”

“Ah, well.” Her finger tightened slightly on the trigger. “Too bad you won’t be around to tell anyone about my mistake.”

“How do you know I haven’t already told someone?”

She hesitated, and then her air of assurance returned. “I’m quite sure you didn’t, if you believed your brother was guilty. No, you were willing to confide in Lina, but no one else.” Her voice held an oddly self-satisfied note.

“I take it you mean to tell Mr. Channing I was attacking your sister, and you were forced to shoot me in an effort to protect her?”

“Very good, Colonel. Yes, I invited Dr. Strickland to dinner this evening expressly to make sure he knew I was in mortal fear of you, and I’d be sleeping with this pistol under my pillow. I’ll be most convincingly distraught after I’ve killed you, believe me, and even more distraught that I was too late to save Lina.”

“And Mr. Niven? I suppose you were his accomplice in the embezzlement scheme?”

“Yes, we were...friends, shall we say? Extremely
close
friends. He was paying me—not much, but it was something—to report back to him in case Radbourne became suspicious. Of course, after Radbourne died he didn’t count on your being so eager to go through the books that you would break into a locked library case almost the instant you arrived. I would’ve warned him you were on to his little swindle, but he’d gone back to York, so I took matters into my own hands.”

“You poisoned Beauty so you could come and go at will, and then slipped prussic acid in the brandy I’d left in the study.”

“I intended to get rid of you eventually anyway, so it was merely a matter of adjusting my plan.” She spoke so coolly, they might have been discussing the weather. “I expected you to drink the brandy at some point in the days leading up to the dinner with the trustees. When you didn’t, I was on tenterhooks for most of the evening, but it was a stroke of fortune for me that Arthur helped himself to the poisoned brandy before he could give me away.” Her hand had to be tiring, but she kept the pistol pointed at his heart.

“The arsenic obviously came from the tack room in the abbey stables. I assume you were also the mysterious doctor who had prussic acid delivered to Pickering?”

“You know about that too? Yes, thanks to my asthma, I knew it had a medical use even before Dr. Strickland mentioned it. I saw a lung specialist in York in October, and he suggested hydrocyanic acid as a possible treatment. Last month I wrote to London pretending to be a physician, then I paid a peddler’s boy to go into the receiving office to collect it for me.”

“And in case anyone might make inquiries, ‘Dr. V. Hamble’ was supposed to point them in my direction?”

“Of course. I doubted even Mr. Channing would be stupid enough to believe you’d buy prussic acid using your real name.”

“What about the pennyroyal tea? How did you obtain that?”

She shrugged. “Arthur—that would be Mr. Niven—brought it from York the week before you came, though at the time he believed it was for my personal use. I knew before he did that Lina was expecting, you see, so all I had to do was tell him I was worried I might be carrying his child.” She smiled. “He was quite put out when he learned it was my sister who had a baby on the way, but he didn’t believe I’d really give Lina the tea. People are always underestimating me that way.”

My God. She was positively diabolical. “This isn’t going to play out the way you planned it, Miss Douglass. You’ve made a critical mistake.”

“Oh, don’t worry about the servants. Eli has the night off, and the others won’t realize they’ve been drugged. Sarah never sits by the fire without nodding off, and Jem and Daniel managed very little sleep last night, thanks to the lung attack I contrived. I’d hoped they’d sleep just long enough for me to deal with Lina, and then come to my aid at midnight once I shot you, but this will still work. In another hour or two, they’ll all be apologizing to me for failing me in my hour of need and leaving me to deal alone with the horror of your attack on my sister.”

“I wasn’t referring to the servants. You’re wrong about my not mentioning the bottle of poison in Freddie’s greatcoat pocket to anyone. Not only does Freddie know I found it, he knows you put it there. In fact, I have him to thank for solving the mystery. He saw you letting yourself into the stillroom with Lina’s key.”

She paled. “He saw me? How? I made sure there was no one about.”

“He was painting the window in the top story of his dovecote, and had a clear view of the abbey from his vantage point.” Ah, she hadn’t bargained on that. She’d gone as white as alabaster. Win pressed his advantage. “There’s no point in any more killing, Miss Douglass. You can’t possibly get away with it, and even if you could, Freddie has no intention of marrying you.”

As shaken as the news had left her, she quickly recovered. “On the contrary, now you’ve guaranteed I have to kill you. You know too much, and so does Lina. And I
will
get away with it. Whom do you think Mr. Channing will find more credible, a tearful young lady who’s lived here blamelessly all her life, or a newly arrived moonling who has no interest in anything but pigeons? Especially since I have nothing obvious to gain, eliminating you and Lina.”

“Freddie’s no moonling,” Win said angrily, “and even if you kill me, you won’t get what you’re after. My brother isn’t interested in marrying you, and that’s not going to change. Even if you manage to convince Mr. Channing that I was the poisoner and you killed me in self-defense, Freddie will know better. You’ll never be Countess of Radbourne.”

“I’ll find some way to change your brother’s mind. It’s not a strong mind, that much is obvious, and I’ll have Dr. Strickland on my side, together with the outpouring of sympathy that’s sure to follow your robbing me of the only family I had left. In time, even your brother will come to believe that you were the killer all along, and that any evidence to the contrary was simply your way of throwing him off the scent.”

“You don’t know Freddie.”

“And you don’t know me. I can be most convincing. I’m young and pretty and I know how to appear harmless and a little silly, yet still get what I want. I’ve had years of practice.” She smiled coldly. “I got away with pushing Lina in Malton, didn’t I? It’s funny—the guard on the Mail was practically looking right at me, but just because he didn’t see a big strong man standing behind my sister, he was convinced she’d merely been clumsy.”

Win’s eyes narrowed. “But why go to such lengths? You
are
young and pretty, and obviously intelligent and determined. Why would any young lady with your gifts commit such desperate crimes, especially when it means turning on a sister who loves you?”

“
Loves
me? Lina?” Miss Douglass gave an ugly laugh. “Oh, yes, she loves me so much she stole the husband and position that should have been mine. Radbourne noticed me first. I saw him in Malton on the very day he returned home from Oxford. He nearly broke his neck, watching me cross the street while he tried not to be obvious about looking.” Her fair brows came down in a furious scowl. “But then Lina spent half our weekly grocery money to buy a subscription ticket to the assembly in Malton—a single ticket for herself, though Fiona and I were every bit as deserving—and stole him out from under my nose.”

“He was free to choose you anyway, wasn’t he?”

“No, he was not free to choose me!” It was the first time she’d shown any real heat. “Not after Lina elbowed her way into his good graces. I could have been a countess. I could have been the mistress of Belryth Abbey. Even Lina knew she was too old for him.” The pistol trembled slightly. Was she agitated, or was her hand tiring? “And I
will
be the Countess of Radbourne. I’ve spent too many years knowing that everything from the food I eat to the clothes on my back comes at the charity of my sister. I’ve never had anything I could truly call my own—certainly not a husband or a title. I’ve been pitied, but never respected.”

“And why Freddie?”

“You mean, why not you?” She looked down her nose at him. “Forgive me if I wounded your vanity, Colonel, but you’re too old and too much like my sister—tiresomely conscientious, and used to having your way. It was welcome news when I learned that the next heirs after Lina’s baby were both single gentlemen, but when I realized your brother was feeble-minded, I knew this was all meant to be. Once you’re gone, he’ll have no one to look after him, and I’ll step in. I’ll finally have everything Lina took from me.”

“Freddie isn’t feeble-minded, and you’re not going to trap him into marriage.”

“What a pity you won’t live to see you’re wrong.” With a thin, superior smile, Miss Douglass pulled the trigger.

* * *

Lina couldn’t move, couldn’t open her eyes. Was this what it was like to die? No, surely she wasn’t dead. Familiar voices ebbed and flowed around her.

“...But then Lina spent half our weekly grocery money to buy a subscription ticket to the assembly in Malton...”

Was she only dreaming? She’d never heard Cassie sound so bitter or so resentful before.

And that was Win’s voice, answering her. Her heart lurched. Win was here, in her bedroom?

Lina fought to claw her way back to consciousness, struggling against the laudanum that held her in its grip.

“...I
will
be the Countess of Radbourne...”

Oh, God. Something was wrong with Cassie. She’d turned into a murderer, a monster. With an effort, Lina opened her eyes.

Her bleary vision refused to focus. What was Cassie holding?

“What a pity you won’t live to see you’re wrong...”

A surge of fear broke the grip of the laudanum. “No!”

Lina cried out at the same moment Win sprang toward Cassie, the same moment Cassie fired. Her scream, Cassie’s start of alarm, and the deafening report of the pistol all came and went in a single instant, as sudden and as jolting as a flash of lightning.

Chapter Twenty-One

So mourn’d the dame of Ephesus her love,
And thus the soldier arm’d with resolution
Told his soft tale, and was a thriving wooer.

—Colley Cibber

The lead ball seared a path across his arm—his broken arm—but Win barely felt it. He wrenched the pistol from Miss Douglass’s hand and threw it aside.

She hadn’t bargained on missing at point-blank range. She stared at him for a moment in shock and dismay, her mouth agape, then turned and fled.

On the bed, Lina had managed to sit up, her head bowed dizzily.

“Are you all right?” If her cry hadn’t distracted Miss Douglass at the crucial moment...

“Yes, only dazed.” Raising her eyes, she caught sight of his torn coat and the blood on his sleeve. “Your arm!”

“It’s nothing—just a flesh wound.” He picked up the pistol. “Is this the only firearm in the house?”

“As far as I know, though I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”

“Damn. I wish I’d thought to bring my own pistol, but I left the abbey in too great a hurry.” Though he’d worried that Miss Douglass might strike again with poison, he hadn’t expected she’d be armed.

“It’s a mercy you arrived when you did.”

“Any idea where your sister left the powder horn and shot?”

She shook her head.

He cocked the hammer and handed her the gun. “Here. I’m going after her. If she comes back before I do, tell her I loaded that for you, and keep it pointed in her direction.”

He raced out and down the stairs. In the entrance hall Jem was still slumped over, snoring, but the front door stood open. Win charged out, taking a chance it was no trick and Miss Douglass really had bolted from the house.

It was still sleeting. He stopped a few yards from the house and looked in either direction. Where would she run, at this hour and in this weather?

Then he spotted a light through the trees. A lantern? Win started toward it.

He discovered Miss Douglass all right, and she was with two men—Freddie and Dr. Strickland. Freddie was holding the lantern aloft, while Miss Douglass had thrown herself into the doctor’s arms and was sobbing brokenly.

“Stay where you are, Miss Douglass,” Win called.

Three heads turned in his direction.

“Don’t let him hurt me!” Miss Douglass cried hysterically, for all the world as if he were the killer and she was in terror of her life. Wide-eyed, she clung to the doctor. “Please—he tried to strangle Lina, and now he’s after me!”

The doctor’s face registered uncertainty, and for a moment Win feared he was about to side with Cassandra Douglass.

Freddie lowered the lantern. “Win’s not going to harm a woman,” he said in his flat, unexcitable way.

Win had never been more grateful for his brother’s stubbornly incongruous reactions.

Freddie’s mild response appeared to affect the doctor, too, for he took Miss Douglass by the wrists. “Calm yourself. No one’s going to hurt anyone here. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“I overtook Dr. Strickland on his way to Malton. We came as quickly as we could.” Freddie frowned at Win. “You’re bleeding.”

Win glanced down at his arm. “Yes, that’s where Miss Douglass shot me.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, on her face a look of such bitter hatred, he scarcely recognized her. “I shot you because you were trying to kill Lina!”

He smiled grimly. “Let’s go and ask her what she has to say about that.”

* * *

After the initial tumult of Cassie’s arrest and the necessity of sorting out her fabrications from the truth, Lina slept off the lingering effects of the laudanum, not waking until dawn. She came downstairs to find both Win and Dr. Strickland still present, drinking strong coffee and talking in low voices.

After a hasty breakfast, she sat with the poor doctor on the sofa, listening to his shocked reflections while Win gave instructions to Jem on the other side of the room.

“I knew she was impetuous,” Dr. Strickland said, sitting forward, head bowed, elbows on his knees, “and even a bit capricious, but I put that down to youth. I trusted that, in time, she would settle down and come to be more like you, Lady Radbourne.” He shook his head. “I was never more deceived in anyone.”

Even in her own shock, Lina felt sorry for him. He’d truly cared for Cassie. “None of us had any inkling what was in her mind. I never suspected, and she’s my sister. When I think how last night might have ended...”

Her eyes strayed from the downcast doctor to where Win, tall and straight, stood conferring with the footman. Thank God for Win. If he hadn’t come rushing to the dower house as soon as he’d realized the truth, Cassandra would have succeeded in her plan. He’d been up all night, seeing to the confused servants, sending for Mr. Channing, arranging a guard to keep watch over Cassie and even lending poor Dr. Strickland a sympathetic ear. And he’d done it all despite their bitter quarrel.

Before Lina had gone to bed, Dr. Strickland had bandaged Win’s bleeding arm. “I’m ashamed now for having doubted you,” the downcast doctor had told him. “I’ve been a fool.”

“You were endeavoring to protect Lady Radbourne,” Win had answered. “I would’ve doubted you in similar circumstances—I
did
doubt you, in fact, given your knowledge of poisons.”

“I hope that means there are no hard feelings.”

“I think it means you and I are equally poor judges of character, but no, there are no hard feelings.”

The doctor had given a weak laugh. For two men who’d once mistrusted each other, they appeared to be forging a friendship.

With the doctor’s help, Win had managed to convince Mr. Channing that Cassie belonged not at the end of a hangman’s rope but in a private asylum. Now she was locked in her bedroom upstairs, Daniel keeping guard, where she would remain until Win and Dr. Strickland could make lasting arrangements. Lina still found it hard to believe that Cassie had committed such merciless crimes, and that she’d shown so little remorse now that her guilt had come to light. She couldn’t help feeling she should have known something was wrong with Cassie’s sense of right and wrong.

Dr. Strickland rose to pour himself more coffee, and Lina caught Win’s eye.

He dismissed Jem with a nod to come and join her on the sofa. “Are you sure you’re all right this morning?”

It had to be the tenth time he’d asked her that. What a fine officer he must have made, always looking out for those in his charge.

“Yes, though I should be asking you that question, really. You’re the one with the injured arm, and you’ve been up all night.” How could she ever thank him enough for the way he’d come racing to her rescue?

“I’m fine, and you’ve been through a good deal more than I have. I never want to relive those moments when I thought Freddie might be responsible, and you’ve had to face that and more with your sister. Not only that, but you’re in a delicate condition.”

“It’s been a shock, and I’m not sure the reality has completely sunk in, but at least now I’m safe. I can’t help thinking it’s my fault, though, that Cassie was able to commit such desperate acts. If I’d realized sooner that something was wrong with her, Mr. Niven might still be alive.”

“I don’t see how you could have known. She went to great lengths to hide her true thoughts and feelings.”

She sighed. “So it was Cassie that Mr. Niven pointed to in the doorway before he died. She was standing right beside me, but when she said he was pointing at me, I never thought to question it.”

Win’s brow wrinkled. “There’s only one point I haven’t figured out. This all began on the day we met, when someone forced open the front door here. I assume that was also your sister’s work, but how did a young lady as small and slight as she is manage it?”

Lina had nearly forgotten about the damaged door. “Oh!” she exclaimed as the answer dawned on her. “The crowbar!”

“What?”

“Mr. Battersby and his apprentice found a crowbar tucked in the wall behind the wainscoting. I supposed it must have been there for years, but now it occurs to me that Cassie must have used it to force open the door, and then hidden it behind the woodwork. She had to make it look as if someone else had been inside the house, so no one would suspect her of putting the pennyroyal tea in the caddy.”

“Ah, that’s what happened to Joe Ibbetson’s crowbar,” Win mused. When she gave him a questioning look, he said, “The abbey handyman thought Freddie had taken it.”

Though he’d apparently sent to the abbey for a change of clothes, Win had spent the night sorting out matters at the dower house and hadn’t yet shaved. Between the dark stubble, the sling and the bandage on his arm, he should have looked sadly the worse for wear, but instead he looked dashing and romantic and faintly piratical. She felt stronger, just being with him. How would she ever bear up when he went back to Hampshire?

He stood and held out his hand to her. “Come for a walk with me.”

“Outside?” she said in surprise. “But the weather—”

“Look out the window. The sleet turned to snow just before dawn.”

She glanced to the drawing room windows. Sure enough, snowflakes were floating past the frozen panes, drifting softly to the ground.

She rose and went with him, pausing to collect her cloak on the way out.

Outside, the air was pure and cold, clearing her head of any last vestiges of laudanum. The gently falling snow gave the woods a hushed quality, as if all of nature was holding its breath. Win took her hand in his, and they strolled up the path leading to the abbey.

Only a few weeks ago, she hadn’t known Win Vaughan was alive. Now, she dreaded his leave-taking. Was there anything she could say to convince him to stay? What if she told him she was willing to be his mistress—was there a chance she could change his mind?

He peered up into the snowy air as they walked. “I wish I’d remembered my hat when I left the abbey last night.”

She glanced across at him, handsome and carrying himself with the military bearing that had so impressed Mrs. Phelps. “I see where Julia gets her preoccupation with fashion.”

He chuckled and drew her to a stop. “I’ve been accused of a good many things, but that’s the first time anyone ever suggested I might be a dandy.” He gazed down at her, and his smiling expression faded to a look of earnestness. “Do you know, when your sister fired that pistol last night, only one regret flashed through my head—don’t tell me this is the end, and I never told Lina I love her.”

He loves me
... She gulped. “Does that mean you’re willing to stay?”

“Oh, I’m definitely staying.” He set her hand over his heart. “I can’t promise you what the future will bring. I made that mistake before and lived to regret it. You could be looking at the next Earl of Radbourne, or just a provincial gentleman who fails at everything he does. But if you’re willing to put your faith in me, I’ll do my best to deserve it.”

Despite the joy whirling inside her, she took his face in her hands and gave him a severe look. “How can you say you fail at everything you do?”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t angling for compliments, just giving you fair warning.”

“And I’m telling you you’re wrong. You have a brother who looks up to you and a daughter who adores you. You no sooner came to Belryth than you discovered an embezzlement scheme Edward likely would’ve allowed to continue for years. You’ve set to rights all the problems at the dower house as if they were the veriest nothing. And you saved my life—twice.” She smiled up at him. “Even one-handed, you’re still better at everything than any other man I know, and I do mean
everything.
”

He gathered her close, the heat of his body warming her even through her cloak, and captured her mouth with his. The snow swirled around them, its light touch wet on her cheeks and in her lashes. She slipped her hands inside his coat, sliding them over the smooth silk of his waistcoat. She loved the feel of his muscles beneath his clothes, his broad back tapering to lean hips, loved the hardness and strength of him.

When they broke off the kiss, she leaned against him, her forehead on his shoulder. “You told me once that you wanted me to trust you so completely, I lost the fear of being hurt. I realized last night I’m not afraid of being hurt any more. I’m only afraid of
your
being hurt.”

He chuckled. “I don’t think you need worry on that score. After the French bayonet, the speeding mail coach and the pistol shot at close range, I’m beginning to believe myself indestructible.” He kissed the top of her head. “Even so, life is too short to let foolish pride get in the way of the best thing that ever happened to me. How would you feel about marrying a man who may or may not be poor?”

She closed her eyes and savored the moment, everything from the gently falling snow to the safe, protected feeling of being in his arms. “I believe the marriage vows do specify ‘for richer, for poorer.’”

“Ah, that covers all contingencies. In the interests of fair play, I should caution you that you’ll become an instant mother to my daughter, as well as sister-in-law to an eccentric nineteen-year-old who considers pigeons the pinnacle of God’s creation.”

“My sister killed Mr. Niven and wanted both of us dead, and you really feel it necessary to caution me because Freddie likes pigeons?”

“Does that mean you’ll marry me?”

She went up on her tiptoes, her arms around his neck, and pressed her lips to his in a heartfelt kiss, pouring all the love and trust and need she felt for him into their embrace. It was several long seconds before she drew back to meet his eyes. “Of course I’ll marry you. Didn’t I propose to you only a short while ago?”

“I had the impression that was more about economic practicality than about passion.”

“No, that was my first marriage.” She searched his face with a look of dawning disbelief. “Are you serious? Did you really think I wanted to marry you for
practical
reasons?”

“Well, you did mention becoming Julia’s governess, and our both living at the abbey...”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You mean it wasn’t obvious I’m mad about you? Only minutes before I’d been begging you not to hold back in your—er, amorous attentions.”