Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 01] - Some Brief Folly (34 page)

Hawkhurst nodded, took a step, and reeled drunkenly. It
required every once of her strength to keep him from falling, but he
gripped her shoulder and mumbled a faint and disjointed, "I'll be… all
right. It's… that gown of yours… drives me to distraction."

She looked down. Her dress was ripped from thigh to hem.
Incredulous, her gaze flashed up again. Pain was making him breathe in
erratic little gasps, but there was a whimsical twinkle in his eyes,
nonetheless. This, she thought, was the kind of valour that had so awed
her on the Peninsula, the indomitable humour that could sustain a brave
man through almost any emergency. She blinked and said huskily, "Alas,
my reputation will be quite gone. I shall say you did it, and you will
have
to wed me!"

He laughed, took a step, and gritting his teeth, struggled on.

The worst part of the journey down was for him to come through
the hole in the roof and onto the top step, but when at last that
painful manoeuvre was accomplished, he turned back to assist Euphemia.

"Do not!" she cried anxiously. "Hawk, you should have let me
go first!"

"What, and miss so trim an ankle?"

That he had seen far more than her ankle she was well aware,
but she soon knew also why he had refused to let her go first, for
despite his brave words he swayed dangerously as he essayed the first
step, then leaned weakly against the wet rock wall.

"You cannot walk down," she decreed, peering at his averted
profile. "Hawk, sit your way, or you will surely fall!"

"Good gad… ma'am… I am the head of… my house. What of my
dignity?"

"I had rather have you humbly alive, than the most dignified
corpse in—" A small, cold frog slithered across her foot. She let out
an instinctive squeal, moved without volition, and slipped. Terror
seized her. So did an arm of iron. She was slammed back against the
wall so hard that the breath was beaten from her lungs, and panic
overtook her, the courage that had upheld her this long dissolving into
a shuddering sob. Hawkhurst, his own knees shaking, knowing how close
they had come to tragedy, took up her cold hand and kissed it. "We'll
follow your scheme, my brave girl," he said softly. "Farewell to
dignity for both of us. Down with you!"

And so, most unheroically, they negotiated that chill and
treacherous descent until at last they came to the ground and, having
clambered through the choked aperture that had once been a mighty door,
stumbled to the outer wall. Here, at last, Hawkhurst's strength gave
out, and he sank down, groaning a frustrated curse at his weakness.

"My poor love," Euphemia said, scanning his ashen face and
closed eyes with fearful anxiety. "I wonder you could get this far.
Hawk, you cannot walk any further. I
must
go and
try to find help!"

He caught at her hand and pulled her back as she made to leave
him. "No. It's not so cold down here. And Colley may come. We'll wait…
together."

Cold and trembling, she sat close beside him and, suddenly
recalling the shawl pinned about her shoulders, began to unfasten it,
intending to wrap it around him. His hand closed about her fingers, and
she glanced up. He was leaning wearily against the rock wall, watching
her, and in his eyes a light such as she had never before witnessed,
and that brought a new humility to her, so full was it of love and
reverence. He said nothing but smiled and put out his arm, and she
crept within it, snuggling close against him.

"You do love me," she whispered. "I knew it. You cannot deny
it now."

"I never said I did not. I said only that I would not marry
you."

"Oh. Well then, we can—"

"We most assuredly can
not
!"

The fear that had haunted her ever since she'd seen that
fragment of his letter became certainty. Staring blindly at his rumpled
cravat, she said, "She's alive, isn't she, Garret? That's why you
cannot offer me marriage."

He gave a harsh derisive laugh. "If it were only that simple!
I could divorce her. Lord knows she gave me reason."

"Tell me." She moved back and watched him tautly. "It is not
because of… of your—"

"Reputation? By God, but it is! And even were that all, it
would be reason enough!"

"Well, it is not all. Garret, I love you. I have a right to
know why happiness is denied me."

He scowled at the tower and muttered, "It is to ensure your
happiness that I deny you."

"Then I will wait, however long it takes, until you disabuse
your mind of such noble nonsense."

He watched her frowningly and, perhaps because he was weak and
in much pain, sighed, "I believe you might, at that. Very well. You may
see how hopeless it is." He groped in his pocket, took out the crumpled
remains of the letter which had plunged them both into this perilous
adventure, and held it out.

The fragment Euphemia had found had been thrust into her
pocket. Her heart leaping, she retrieved it, fitted it carefully into
place, and read:

My Dear Patron:

Your payment was adequate, wherefore I keep my word. Dawn
tomorrow. At your favourite retreat. We will arrange a meeting. But
come
alone
! And please—no plotting! I am no fool, as you know. I
shall leave strict instructions with my people. If I do not return by a
certain time, and without being followed, Avery will be sold to the
factories, or to the mines.

Ever yrs, etc. Robert M

"
Avery
… ?" she breathed, astounded.
"Your
son
? Avery is…
alive
?"

He nodded dully. "And had I but read that at once last
evening, I might have seen him, at last. But I was too late."

"No, my dear one. Never grieve so! Mount had no thought but to
kill you. What an evil man! He must be quite mad!"

"Yes, I think he is, now. Perhaps, to an extent, he always
was."

"Because of Blanche?"

He gazed at her blankly, and, seeking to spare him as much as
possible of that bitter retelling, she said gently, "I know some of it,
Garret. Dr. Archer told me why you married her. And that she and Mount
loved one another."

"Yes…" He looked away again and after a moment of brooding
silence said, "I didn't know about that until after Avery was born.
When I learned of it, I told her I had no objection to her pursuing her
affair with Mount, so long as she was discreet about it." His lip
curled. "More folly. I totally underestimated the depth of her passion.
Mount was her god. And Mount wanted Dominer even more than she did. You
may believe that I saw as little of either of them as I could manage,
else I might have realized that fact. At all events, when Avery was two
years old, I became very ill. Archer couldn't find the cause, but I
grew steadily worse, and he insisted I be moved to his house. My
recovery was rapid. Astonishingly so." Euphemia uttered a shocked gasp,
and he smiled sardonically. "Hal tried to warn me. There were all kinds
of rumors about, he said, odd rumors that I ill-treated my wife and
son. Lord knows, I saw Blanche seldom, which might have been construed
ill-treatment, but Hal said there was more to it and seemed to suspect
some kind of plot. I laughed at him and said it was a lot of
melodramatic fustian. And then one evening, Max Gains came over. We'd
had a dispute for a long time. A foolishness that began over some trees
along the boundary line. I'd cut them down. Max liked them. He never
forgave me, and his blunt manner irked me. One word led to another. He
always was terribly hot at hand, and I suppose I was, too. I could have
ended it all by telling him that the trees had been diseased. But, like
a perfect fool, I did not, and it went on until we were on the brink of
a duel. This particular evening was extremely sultry, and I'd sent a
lackey to bring me a glass of water just before Max arrived. I was
alone in the library when Max burst through the terrace doors and
started ranting at me about some nonsense that was so utterly unfounded
I could only laugh at him. He came at me like a maniac. The glass was
in my hand. It seemed so… logical to…" The words trailed off. He leaned
his head back and gripped his leg and was silent.

Eyes wide, she whispered, "You threw it in his face? And… it
was oil of vitriol?"

"Shall I ever forget how he cried out," he muttered sombrely.
"How he stood there… clutching his poor face."

"If you… had
drunk
it! My God!"

"I sent Manners after Hal," he went on. "Max was half out of
his mind with pain, and, as soon as it was possible, Hal took him back
to Chant House. I went after that lackey. He was gone, of course. The
poor fool had been dazzled by Blanche, and I've no doubt that he would
have been branded my murderer had their nasty little scheme succeeded.
But I knew better. I knew Hal had been right, and I went tearing
upstairs after her. She was ready. She hid behind the door and lost no
time in breaking a vase over my head." He smiled bitterly. "She had the
gumption to hit hard, I'll say that for her. By the time I came around
she had gone and had done her work well. The household was agog with
the news that I had tried to kill her because she upbraided me for
blinding Max. She had fled for her life, taking her child with her."

Euphemia squeezed his hand comfortingly. "So you went after
her."

He nodded. "I should have gone to Max, I suppose, for, when I
eventually returned to England, the time was long past when I could
have explained anything. But Blanche never had cared a button for
Avery. I knew the life he'd have with her. She went to Mount, of
course. I chased them over half the Continent and caught up with them
four months later in Nice. It was a dark night, and I left my curricle
and raced into the pension where they were staying. What Mount had told
those people I've no idea, but they behaved as though I were the fiend
incarnate. I ran out of patience and started tearing doors open. The
proprietor went after the local gendarme, but I saw Blanche and Avery
run across the street. I charged downstairs, but two of the waiters
held me. I was not to molest '
la très jolie mademoiselle
,'
they said. Blanche looked back over her shoulder. She was very
frightened." He scowled broodingly. "I collect she thought it logical
enough to take Avery away in my own curricle. She didn't know that
Mount had seen me arrive and had tampered with the axle… She was good
with the ribbons, but loved to spring her horses. When the axle parted,
the curricle went off the road—and into the sea." He stared blindly
into the fog, and Euphemia, scarcely daring to breathe, waited.

"Mount got to the wreckage first. The boy had been thrown
clear, but Blanche was killed instantly. He took Avery and told the
police later that the child had been lost in the sea. At first, I
believed it. Then…" He drew one hand across his haggard eyes. "Mount
wrote to me. He was quite explicit about what would happen to Avery if
I did not follow instructions. He's been blackmailing me ever since."

There was a short silence, Hawkhurst haunted by memory,
Euphemia variously horrified and perplexed.

"Garret," she said at last, "could you not have set agents to
search for the boy?"

"I had one of the finest men in Europe hunting him for better
than a year, but it was as if the earth had opened and swallowed him.
All we were able to discover was that he
was
my
son, that he was quite recovered from his injuries, and that Mount had
him. Then, I received a warning. Diccon, my agent, had come close. If
it ever happened again, Avery would die. As it was, I could be assured
my interference had resulted in the boy being… severely punished. I was
powerless. After a while, I recovered some backbone and sent more men.
I dared not go myself, for Mount had warned I was watched, and, if I
sought them or let one word leak out, Avery would suffer terribly. I
told my men that, if they even suspected they had located Mount, they
were to do nothing, just let me know at once. But they never again
caught up with him. All his demands were handled with painstaking
cunning and never twice by the same method. The letter he sent the
other day was my first intimation he was even in England."

Euphemia looked at him uncertainly, and Hawkhurst elaborated,
"It was left at the Receiving Office in Down Buttery, on the morning
you cut my sister's hair."

So that was why he had been so furiously angry. She said
slowly, "I see… And Mount doesn't want you to marry, for fear you will
get yourself an heir."

"More than that. He blames me for Blanche's death. The
accident was intended for me, so by his reasoning I am responsible. At
first, he used to write me letters describing his treatment of my son."
His head lowered, the hand on his knee tightening. "Then, he warned me
that, since I had killed his love, I would never be allowed to take a
wife. I honestly believe he would murder the boy if I did."

"Oh, Hawk, my poor darling! How awful! But, should you not
have told Lord Wetherby? The poor old fellow must grieve so. Surely, if
he had some hope… ?"

"Good God, no! He worshipped Blanche. To learn what she really
was would alone be enough to kill him, for I'm sure he would start to
blame himself for the whole mess. Likely worry himself into the grave.
And, as for Avery, how he doted on that child! To give him hope, hope
that might prove false… Mia, had my grandfather been put through what I
have had to face these last four years, he would be dead! He may look
well, but he's had one seizure, and the doctor said shock or worry
would be fatal."

"Yes, dear. But Archer thinks—"

"He
thinks
! But if anything happened to
the old gentleman—No! I will not allow it. When I have Avery safe,
then, gradually, he shall know the whole. For the time, better he go on
despising me. At least, I can have the consolation of knowing he's
alive."