The Sanctuary (A Spencer Novel) (33 page)

Chapter 57

Anthony snuffed the wick in the lamp in Clairece’s study and quit the room, closing the door behind him. Tomorrow, he would send a footman to remove the remaining tomes from the top shelf. The decision as to which ones should stay would be hers.

At a soft clink from the direction of the library, he crept down the hall toward the partially open door. The sound came again and Anthony recognized it for what it was—the stopper from a crystal decanter. He nudged the door open.

James slouched in a chair, a glass of brandy clutched in his hand. As Anthony watched, his friend leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees, and closed his eyes.

“James?”

James glanced at him, then returned his gaze to the golden liquid in his snifter.

Anthony closed the door and dropped into the seat across from his friend, who hefted the almost-empty decanter and raised a brow. “What’s troubling you? I’m guessing it’s something more than the miscreant we’re dealing with.”

“And you would be right.” James set the decanter on the small table near his chair. “But it’s also one and the same.”

“I don’t understand.”

In one gulp, James downed the remainder of his drink and set the glass beside the carafe. “Pray God you never do.”

“Whatever it is, let me help.”

“You’re the brother I was never blessed with, and dear to me. Would that I might spare you.”

Alarm spiked. “Spare me from what?”

James speared him with a look of such anguish, Anthony’s resolve to know, faltered.

“Be warned, Tony, you will not like what I have to say. Hell and damnation”—James rose unsteadily to his feet—“what any man of us has debated on saying.”

The hair on the back of Anthony’s neck prickled with foreboding.

“It is clear you hold Gerald in some esteem, though God only knows why. It’s also apparent you refuse to accept the evidence forming against him.” James raked his fingers through his hair. “If it were any other man, you would have drawn the same conclusion before now. It wants only to see his name on the ships’ manifests to confirm his guilt.”

“You cannot know for certain.” Anthony’s stomach threatened to revolt.

“Do you think I would voice an opinion, mine or any others’, if I weren’t convinced of what I say? Out of concern for you, we have held our suspicions until absolute proof arrives. Within a day or two, we will have our validation and this will end. I would ask you not detest whoever sees to its conclusion.”

“What are you saying?” Anthony could barely form the words.

“Even with all his heinous crimes, Gerald still holds a baronetcy of long standing. Though not a peer of the realm, it is still possible his punishment might be deportment to the colonies in Australia. He would be free to inflict his tortures on other unsuspecting women. This cannot be allowed.”

“You sound like one of those benighted men Stallings spoke of.” At the look on James’ face, Anthony’s blood froze. “James?”

His friend’s voice lowered to a menacing purr. “So you believe those who seek justice when the system fails are in contemptible moral ignorance?”

“Don’t you? As Lords, we are charged to uphold the laws of the land as it stands.”

“Even if those laws
are flawed and proven to be imperfect?” James articulated slowly.

“They are better than no law at all.” Anthony vaulted to his feet. “Do you countenance the idea some should stand outside the law and dispense a form of justice most would only see as vengeance?”

“I
countenance
justice which is why I spend so damned much time in Parliament and the Lords,” James retorted.

The case clock on the mantle struck four times.

“I think you should return to your wife, Tony. The sun will rise soon enough with whatever unpleasantness the day will bring.”

“And at the end of the day, you and I will still be friends.”

Uncommon silence greeted Anthony when he entered the breakfast parlor. A room holding at least half-dozen men, breaking their fast, should be abuzz with conversation. He glanced at the lot of them, inordinately preoccupied with their food-laden plates.

A movement near the window revealed a dust-covered Rafael Cordova.

“Tell me,” Anthony ordered without preamble.

One by one, the men set their forks down, similar expressions of commiseration evident on their faces.

Rafael faced him squarely. “My men and I came across a body early this morning. He was shot in the back and the face by someone who would make him difficult to identify.”

“Is it our man?” Anthony queried.

Rafael held out his hand. “We found this on his person, Lord Anthony.”

As soon as the flat piece of metal hit his palm, Anthony knew what he would see.
Merciful God in Heaven
. He glanced at a button bearing the Harding coat of arms. “How long has the man been dead?”

“Three or four days, at the most,” Rafael responded.

Anthony’s gaze narrowed on Stallings. “You bastard! You knew what would happen, and still you set the ball in motion.”

Stallings rose to his feet. “You may not agree with my methods, Harding, but I intend to stop this maniac.”

Aware the others watched, Anthony crossed to the buffet and deliberately filled his plate, praying his stomach would not rebel at the sight of food. He took a seat and addressed the other men. “I would welcome any suggestions on how best to proceed from here.”

Farris spoke. “Why, if Roxbury is our man, did he not kill Lady Clairece when the opportunity presented itself at the icehouse?”

“If I were to guess, I would say had she shown any indication she recognized him, he would have. In an earlier discussion with Gerald, I told him she couldn’t identify the other man,” Anthony supplied. It killed him to assign such a heinous act to the cousin of his youth.

Jason blotted his mouth with his napkin. “What made Roxbury rescue Lady Clairece?”

“Because,” Philippe suggested, “there was something he wanted more, and it is in this house.”

“The missing collar. The artifact is in this house and Roxbury needed access to retrieve it,” Stallings concluded.

“So he’ll most likely return,” Adrian added.

Jason rubbed wearily at his eyes. “He’s taking an enormous risk.”

“The man is sick. In his mind, the collar has become something more than the money it would bring on the black market.” Farris glanced around the room at each man. “I predict he won’t leave without it.”

“Where’s my daughter?” Joel looked to Anthony.

“She had a tray sent to the office she’s remodeling.” Anthony downed a gulp of his coffee. If it stayed put, he would take another.

“Beg pardon, my lord, but there are two officers asking to speak to Inspector Stallings,” Hodges announced from the doorway.

“Please show them in here. With the Inspector’s permission, we would all like to hear what they have to say.” Anthony raised a brow at Stallings, daring him to refuse.

“By all means.” Stallings got to his feet.

Two men, wearing the dark suits associated with detectives of Scotland Yard, entered behind Hodges.

“Tell me you’ve found what we needed,” Stallings demanded.

“We believe so, Chief. Such a God awful mess to go through.” One of the detectives handed Stallings a few sheets of faded foolscap.

Stallings scanned the first sheet and stopped midway, then scanned the next. He frowned and perused the final sheet, again stopping halfway. “Got ya!” Stallings exclaimed. “They separated on the trip back to England and used two different ports, but it’s all here.” He handed the ships’ logs to Anthony. “Good work, men.”

Anthony scanned the names on the sheet until he reached the familiar scrawled signature of Mr. Gerald Wade. Below, was a bold X. Printed beside the mark was the name Mortimer Scrubs.

“Hodges!” Anthony bellowed.

“My lord?” Hodges appeared at the door.

“We are to be informed the minute Gerald returns,” Anthony ordered.

Hodges straightened. “Sir Gerald is in residence, my lord. He returned sometime during the night.”

Chapter 58

Clairece mounted the somewhat rickety ladder and reached for the last book on the top shelf. She’d declined the help of a footman, wishing to finish the work herself. A perfect little jewel, Anthony had called her new study, and she had to agree.

As she grasped the heavy tome, the ladder tilted. With a startled shriek, she let go of the book and grabbed for a rung on the stepladder. The volume hit the floor with a sickening thud. Mindful of the unsteady apparatus, she eased her grip and slowly descended.

As a lover of books, she felt a surge of dismay at the long crease channeling the spine. She hefted the heavy volume and laid it on the desk, lifting the cover.

The breath left her lungs in a whoosh of surprise. Tucked into the hollowed-out center was a small strip of leather.

Clairece withdrew a handkerchief from the pocket of her day dress, and gently lifted the ancient relic from its hiding place. In the morning light, the rubies glistened blood red, while the yellow diamonds shot delicate shafts of rainbow-colored light around the room.

She wrapped the collar in the embroidered linen until she could safely deposit the precious piece in Stallings’ hands. Behind her, the door clicked shut.

“Well, Lady Clairece. Imagine my surprise in finding you here.” Gerald’s gaze circled the room, stopping on the empty top shelf. “Bloody hell,” he growled and yanked the hat from his head.

A small red feather adorned the band.

All thought, save horror, deserted her.

A slow, evil smile crossed Gerald’s countenance before flattening into a hard line. “Ah, I see you’ve remembered where we first met. Too bad. I had decided not to kill you—a parting gift to my dear cousin.”

Clairece shivered at the lack of emotion in Gerald’s eyes. This must have been what other women had seen before he killed them.

“Where is the collar?”

“How . . . how should I know?” She furtively slid the bundle into a side pocket of her frock.

Gerald’s lip curled. “It will go much harder on you if you toy with me.” His gaze slid down her body, slowing as he ogled her breasts.

Clairece crossed her arms over her chest.

Something flared in his eyes. Too late, she recognized her show of fear only excited him. Behind the front of his trousers, the evidence of his arousal began to show.

“If you come near me, I will scream.”

With lethal intent, Gerald withdrew a pistol and aimed it at her. “Were you to do such an unwise thing, the first innocent fool to rush through that door would die. Do you want another death on your conscience?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your late husband, for one, the American who purchased that bedamned collar from me, and the go-between who set up the exchange. Add the footman and that stupid maid of Tony’s, and you should be feeling overwrought by now. I’ll take responsibility for Mort. I couldn’t have him yapping, could I? Besides, the sodding lackwit thought to blackmail me.”

At the sound of men’s boots pounding in the hallway, Gerald swore. “You’ve made this far more difficult than it needed to be. You’ll pay for that, too.”

Horrific images skittered through her mind. Her vision dimmed and her knees went weak. To keep her balance, she braced her hand against the edge of the desk.

A stinging blow sent her sprawling.

“I’ll have no histrionics from you,” Gerald snarled. He gripped her arm and jerked her to her feet. “Make one sound and you can watch Tony die.” He shoved her through the French doors and out onto the terrace.

The night’s rain made walking on the damp grass difficult. Clairece lost her footing and fell to her knees. She cried out as Gerald hauled her to her feet, wrenching her arm in the process. She kicked and tugged wildly against her captor, earning a backhanded slap from Gerald.

Anthony’s roar of rage could be heard above the shouts of the other men. Clairece swung toward the sound to see her husband burst through the French doors and cross the terrace at a full-out run, while six others followed in hot pursuit. Two men dashed around the edge of the house. Philippe and Rafael.

Gerald’s eyes took on a wild, hunted look. He jabbed the barrel of the gun into Clairece’s ribs, propelling her toward the gravel path leading toward the cliffs and the estuary. The rough pebbles made short work of her thin slippers, shredding the soft bottoms and cutting the tender skin of her feet. She bit her lip against the pain and limped on.

“Run, bitch.” Gerald aimed the gun at Anthony who steadily gained on them.

She shrieked, racing unsteadily, petrified at what would happen if she didn’t.

The sound of horses’ iron-shod hooves beat a steady tattoo from either side of the footpath. From the corner of her eye, she spotted bareback riders, led by Philippe and Rafael, sweeping by to form a barrier to the cliffs.

Gerald slowed his pace. “Move aside or she dies,” he huffed out, lifting the gun to her temple.

At a nod from Rafael, the men separated, moving off a few yards. Apparently, that was as much as they would give.

“You cannot escape, Gerald, you must see that,” Clairece pleaded. With him pressed to her side, she could feel his chest heave as he gasped for breath. She flicked a glance at him. His face, flushed crimson with exertion, dripped sweat, and his lips had taken on a bluish cast.

“I know nothing of the sort. They won’t let anything happen to you.”

She met Rafael’s hard stare. “I know these men. If it means sacrificing me to stop you, they will do so.”

Anthony suddenly rushed into the small clearing left by the mounted men. James, Stallings, Jason Rutledge, Benjamin Farris, Adrian, and her father closed rank. Her heart broke at the sheer horror on her father’s face.

Anthony inched nearer. “Gerald, let Clairece go. You can have me in exchange.”

“Don’t come any closer, Tony, or I swear I will kill her.” Gerald glanced wildly around. “That goes for any of you. One move and she dies.”

“And what will you have then?”

“What I have now. Nothing,” Gerald wheezed. “But neither will you,
Cousin
.”

“My God, Gerald, what happened to the lad I grew up with? How did he become the monster who committed these terrible things?”

Clairece couldn’t bear the look of disillusionment on Anthony’s face.

“They were always one and the same, Tony.”

“Was there nothing I could have done?”

Gerald’s voice reflected anguished misery. “I just wanted to
feel
something again! I did as a lad, but the older I got, the harder it became to feel any emotion at all. And then, I discovered inflicting pain gave me a thrill.”

Anthony’s expression changed to one of horrific disbelief as comprehension dawned.

Fear—cold and debilitating—settled in the pit of Anthony’s stomach as Gerald’s finger tightened on the trigger. “Gerald, I don’t understand.” The others waited for a sign from him to proceed. First, he had to retrieve Clairece.

“Of course you don’t. You cared for everyone and everything—even me. You were the good one, while I made all the mistakes.” Gerald sighed harshly. “Did it not once occur after you found out about your, shall we say, less than stellar beginnings, that I was the rightful heir and not you?”

“The rules of primogeniture see it differently. Your father—”

“My
father
considered me a disappointment. He was forever holding you up as a measure I should try and emulate. I finally got tired of hearing it.”

Anthony voiced a disturbing hunch. “Is that why you killed him?”

A glimmer of approval appeared in Gerald’s grim smile. “That, and he refused to help me. Uncle Melville was so busy despising you for your mother’s indiscretion, he found me quite to his liking—for a while, at least.”

“Let
me
help you.”

“You cannot fix this for me, no one can. Truth to tell, I’m tired of it all.”

“Let me at least try,” Anthony pleaded.

Gerald tightened his grip around Clairece’s waist. “You’re a truly good man, Tony. For a while, I did attempt to emulate you. But there was the problem involving the daughter of a cit. My father threatened to disinherit me if I didn’t make it right, as if I would ever marry one such as her. The look on her face . . .” Gerald pinned him with a piteous look and Anthony realized that somewhere, at some time, his childhood companion had gone mad.

Gerald lifted the gun to wipe perspiration from his forehead. At Anthony’s advance, he jabbed the pistol against Clairece’s ribs.

“Please be careful. I love her.”

“Such an overrated emotion.”

“Have you never loved anyone, Gerald?”

Dismay filled his cousin’s expression. “I loved
you
, Tony. I thought you understood.”

“Oh, God, Gerald. I didn’t know. I was never of that inclination—”

“It hardly signifies now.”

“Why all the women?” Anthony queried, completely flummoxed.

“A diversion. It was never about the sex, only the fear I could invoke in them.”

Bile rose in Anthony’s throat.

“After my father refused to help, I went to Uncle Melville.” Gerald uttered a manic giggle. “He held you up to me. You, whom he had treated so abominably, were more of a man than I would ever be. He told me to get out.”

Anthony’s heart began to pound.

“I couldn’t allow him to dismiss me. You understand, don’t you?” Gerald beseeched. “I took the gun from the top drawer of his desk and made it look like the old bugger had taken his own life. I knew you wouldn’t mind, after all he’d done to you.”

There was no way Anthony could hide the horror he felt.

“Your mother was an accident.”

Blood roared viciously in Anthony’s ears and his eyes seemed to cloud with a red haze.

“She was always good to me. She helped me with bits of money and a bobble or two when I got in trouble.” Gerald frowned in remembrance. “One day, she caught me going through her jewelry looking for pieces to sell. I’d been throwing dice with some of the chaps in the village and lost. They threatened to take it out of my hide if I didn’t pay up.” He looked imploringly at Anthony. “You know I could never abide pain. She followed me to the top of the stairs, yelling at me to give her the box. She reached for the jewelry coffer and I pushed her away. That’s all I meant to do.”

Anthony lunged for Gerald.

“Tony, no!” James bellowed, bringing Anthony to a skidding halt. “Gerald will be punished for his crimes, all of them, but not at your hands.”

Anthony clenched his fists against the rage sweeping him. Clairece met his gaze, understanding reflected in her tearful eyes. He cleared his throat and chanced stepping closer.

“Gerald, I offer my life as forfeit in exchange for Clairece’s. Please.” Anthony forced himself to relax his fists, and held out his hand.

Gerald stared at him blankly. “What are you . . .?”

“Give me your hand, Clairece. That’s it, my love,” he crooned. “Trust me, dearest, and close your eyes.” She frowned, then her eyelids dropped.

“That’s my girl. You are not to open them until you’re asked to do so.” Anthony glanced at Joel who nodded.

“But—” she started.

“Hush, love,” Anthony continued to cajole. If, heaven forbid, these words were the last she might hear, the last he might say to her, he wanted her to know what was in his heart. With another step, his fingers touched hers. “All you need think of is the way I hold you as we watch the sun rise in the morning.” He spoke as if for her ears only as he caught the tips of her fingers.

At that first gentle tug, Gerald—surprisingly—eased his hold.

“Have I told you how dear you are to me, or how much I love your sweet scent on my skin after I’ve held you? In these few short weeks, you’ve banished the ghosts and nightmares and made me whole again. You are the love of my life, Clairece.”

Anthony gave another careful tug, and again Gerald gave way. Clairece drew a bit closer, until Anthony was able to clasp her hand fully in his.

“I once asked Hodges what determined whether a man’s life had been worthwhile or well lived. His answer was only partially correct. The true answer is the love of a good woman. I was well and truly blessed with you.”

Anthony tugged a final time and Clairece came into his arms. He pressed a kiss to her cheek and released her to her father’s care. Joel swept her away to a safe distance.

Standing alone and sadly vulnerable, Gerald pleaded, “Don’t let them take me, Tony. They will lead me out before a crowd and hang me. I couldn’t stand the humiliation—the pain.” He spun to observe the set faces of the men surrounding him. “For the love of God, Tony, do something,” he whimpered.

“I’m sorry,” Anthony whispered.

Gerald abruptly gasped and clutched at his chest with his free hand.

“You’re ill. Let someone help you.” Anthony tried to reach for Gerald. Only the gun clasped in his cousin’s shaky grip held him back.

Stumbling, Gerald gained the very edge of the cliff. “Better this way.” His face contorted in pain.

“Please, Gerald,” Anthony beseeched.

Gerald shook his head and closed his eyes. And stepped over the cliff.

Anthony stood transfixed in shock as his cousin plunged soundlessly toward the crumbling rocks far below.

Clairece’s arms slid around his waist. Unable to restrain the tears, he buried his face in her neck and sobbed. He cried for the boy he’d once known, and for the sad, damaged man Gerald had become.