The toplofty Lord Thorpe, page 13
A commotion at the door brought all their heads around, and a worse-for-wear Parker staggered into the room to drop to his knees dramatically at Thorpe’s feet. “I…I got away!” he rasped, before crumbling to the floor, breathing heavily.
Pandemonium prevailed for some minutes as Parker was half-carried to a chair and some restorative spirits poured down his throat. He looked as if he had been dealt a mighty thrashing, for his nose was red and it was obvious that he would soon be showing off one blackened eye. Even Dexter, who would have sworn he didn’t give a fig about the timid secretary, felt an incredible need to find whoever had done this terrible thing and beat him into a pulp.
Parker’s story, spoken as it was around a swollen mouth and a few loose teeth, was much as Julian had imagined it. Feeling he had been of little help so far in clearing the earl’s name, Parker had decided to go to the village and ask a few questions of his own. After finding nothing new at the local inn, he had reluctantly headed home, only to be attacked from behind and dragged off to some run-down cottage.
“The cottage where Miss Anscom went to meet her lover!” Lucy interrupted, feeling that they were getting somewhere at last. “Then the murderer is still in the area. We should be out there right now, hunting the blackguard down before he makes good his escape.”
“No,” his lordship told her decisively.
Lucy was beside herself. How could he refuse her help like this? Didn’t he understand how impossible it was for her to sit back and do nothing at a time like this? “Oh,” she exploded, with more emotion than good sense, “if you had any gumption at all you’d do it!”
“Lucille,” Julian bit out from between clenched teeth, “I have had all I can stand from you and your maggoty ideas. Please leave us.”
Lucy looked from Julian to Tristan to her aunt and then back again to her infuriating beloved. “Oooohh!” she erupted, stamping her foot, and then lifted her skirts defiantly and flounced out of the room.
“That’s the ticket, coz,” Dexter applauded approvingly. “Break her to halter now or she’ll lead you a merry chase.”
“If I might continue?” Parker whined, looking up from his makeshift bed of pain.
“Sorry, Parker,” Dexter apologized, shaking his head yet again as he took in his cousin’s battered appearance. “I have to tell you, though, I never thought you had it in you. Escaped, did you? Now, I would have thought sure you would have bungled it, if I had ever believed you’d try such a thing in the first place. Please go on, I really do want to hear about your adventure.”
The secretary made short work of the rest of his tale, relating how he had been carried unconscious to the cottage but awoke before it was full dawn. He had had one foot already out the cottage window when the kidnapper had realized what he was about, and in the ensuing struggle Parker had sustained the injuries that were so apparent to his audience. “But I broke clear at last and stumbled into the trees behind the cottage. I must have run for miles before exhaustion overtook me and I lay down to rest. I would have been back sooner, else. I hope I haven’t caused you too much bother.”
“No, of course not,” Dexter assured him lightly. “Cousin Julian may have lost another fiancée, that’s all.”
“Fiancée?” Parker questioned, gingerly examining his puffy lower lip. “Miss Gladwin?”
“Well, it ain’t me, you fool,” Dexter retorted, back in his old form. “Sorry,” he added hastily as Julian shot him a warning with his eyes, “it’s just that I’m so used to doing it. Parker here has always been such an easy target. Guess I’ll have to rethink the thing. Now that he’s a hero, you know.”
Rachel reentered the room then, dragging Deirdre in tow. “Raleigh has sent for the doctor, but I thought Deirdre could have a look at him for now.”
Parker shrank back against the cushions. “I’ll wait for the doctor,” he said, eyeing the young red-headed woman warily.
“Is that so?” the maid sniffed, insulted. “And didn’t you know that a wise woman is better than a foolish doctor, which is all you’d be getting out here in the middle of nowhere. Give over, sir, and let me have a look at you.”
There being nothing much more to do, and seeing that Deirdre would be unavailable for pestering for some time, Dexter took himself off to the billiard room and some much-needed practice while Julian and Tristan, who had been very quiet throughout the whole interlude, adjourned to the garden for a council of war.
With everyone occupied elsewhere, it was an easy matter for Lucy, now dressed in her blue riding habit, to sneak off toward the stables.
IT WAS SO CONFUSING. Lucy knew Julian loved her—there wasn’t a single doubt left in her mind. And she loved him—had been loving him for what seemed like forever. So why had he yelled at her and looked at her as if he wanted nothing more than to turn her over his knee? And why did she feel like grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him senseless? This was love? How could you love someone and still be so angry with him that you shouted at him?
As her horse ate up the miles between Hillcrest and the cottage, Lucy struggled with the confusion in her mind. It wasn’t as if Julian had entered into their relationship believing she was some simpering miss—he’d had three long years to learn about her. As for herself, she thought, shrugging, she knew Julian tended to be a mite stuffy. It was a part of his charm.
She believed that their love was strong enough to surmount these little obstacles. Besides, Julian looked so adorable when he lost his temper. Much as she aimed to please him, she would have to remember to ruffle his feathers once in a while, just to keep things interesting. She smiled and patted the horse’s head, wondering if he really would spank her.
The cottage was just ahead, and she dismounted in order to keep her approach as quiet as possible. She was sure the place was unoccupied; no murderer, no matter how mad, would be foolish enough to linger when Parker was bound to have told everyone where he had been hidden. Looking around her carefully, she tiptoed up to a window and peered inside.
The cottage was deserted. Circling around to the front door, which hung by only two of its hinges, she stepped inside and began her inspection. The few sticks of furniture were old and broken, and only a pile of rags in the corner that looked as if someone had been lying on them showed any sign of recent habitation. All in all, it seemed like she had wasted a trip.
So much for solving the puzzle and saving the day, she grimaced, knowing full well the scolding she would receive upon her return to Hillcrest. Between the lecture she was sure to receive from Aunt Rachel and the blistering set-down Julian was bound to serve her, she felt no need to hurry her return, and decided to ride past the pond where Susan Anscom had met her end.
The village lad who agreed to hold her horse for a penny also supplied the information that led her to the exact spot where Miss Anscom’s body had been discovered. It was a deceptively peaceful scene, what with the willow trees trailing down into the water and lush green grass running clear to the edge of the pond.
Breaking off a slender willow branch, Lucy sat down near the gently sloping bank and stared out over the water, trying to imagine what it had been like there the night of the drowning. The lad had said the body hadn’t been found until the morning. Strange, she questioned, looking around and realizing how close the surrounding cottages were to the pond.
How had the murderer done his despicable deed without someone either seeing or hearing something? Surely the girl hadn’t willingly walked into the pond so that the murderer wouldn’t be put to too much bother when it came time to hold her head under the surface.
Perhaps she had been murdered somewhere else and her body dumped in the pond. Lucy would have to go back and read the suicide note more closely to see if the pond had been mentioned. No, she thought, shaking her head; the contents of the letter really didn’t mean anything. It was written according to the murderer’s direction, not on the girl’s whim.
Lucy hung her head, feeling totally defeated. She had so counted on helping Julian, on being the one to save him. Using the broken end of the willow branch, she dug idly in the dirt as she cudgeled her brain for a plausible excuse for her absence all afternoon. She could say she had gone off in a huff and simply been hacking about aimlessly—heaven only knew Aunt Rachel would believe that.
If only she could come up with something, some little glimmer of hope that would… What was that? The stick she had been stabbing into the soft soil hit on something solid. Probably a stone, she thought, trying to keep down her rising excitement as she scrambled to her knees and began digging in earnest.
With trembling fingers she picked up the large flat bone button—the sort to be found on men’s jackets—and held it up in front of her. It was a very distinctive button, with a thin gold design drawn on it, and could only have come from a coat cut in London. She had found their first solid clue, she could feel it in her bones.
Clambering to her feet, she ran back to where the boy waited with her horse and headed back to Hillcrest. Wouldn’t Julian be surprised to hear what she had done! She had solved the case! All they had to do was match the button to the coat it belonged to and they would have their man.
It was only when she was more than halfway to Hillcrest that she realized that there was no way to go about London looking for that one particular coat. It was ludicrous—they had no starting point, no clue as to a likely suspect. Tears of frustration clouded her vision as she rode on, which perhaps accounted for the fact that she did not see the dog that came bounding out onto the roadway and anticipated her frightened mount’s reaction.
A scant second later she was lying unconscious in the dirt, the button still clutched in her hand.
“TAKE A DRINK OF THIS for me, Lucy,” a male voice crooned, supporting her back with his hand as he held a glass to her lips.
She struggled to open her eyes, but could see little in the dusk-darkened room. “Julian?” she ventured, blinking hard to banish the mist that floated in front of her eyes. “Where am I?”
“You’re in your bed at Hillcrest. You had a spill from your horse. Drink this.”
She was all right, although her head ached abominably. Julian was with her. She was fine. But she wasn’t thirsty. “Don’t want any,” she slurred, trying to turn her head away.
“You’ll sleep better,” he urged, pressing the rim to her lips. “It will help your head. It hurts, doesn’t it?”
A small smile touched her lips. Dear Julian. He was trying to help her. “Sleep,” she said almost eagerly. “Just want to sleep.”
“That’s right, Lucy,” he encouraged, watching her as she tried to drink. “Be careful, you’re slopping it onto your nightgown.”
“It tastes vile,” she protested, trying to squirm from his hold. “Don’t want any more. Have to tell you what I found. Sleep later.”
“Do as I say,” he ordered, his harsh voice setting off a new onslaught of pain in her abused head.
Choking and gasping, she tried not to swallow the brackish-tasting liquid Julian kept forcing into her mouth. “Stop,” she spluttered. “Hate you, hate you for this. Don’t want to sleep.”
After he had satisfied himself that he had gotten enough of the potion into her, he let her fall back against the pillows. “You’ll sleep now,” he said almost gently as he left the room. “You’ll sleep forever.”
An alarm bell went off in Lucy’s tortured brain. “Eternal sleep,” the old Gypsy had told her. She didn’t want to sleep forever. She… Oh God!
Lucy struggled to sit up, and the room spun around her. She had to get help; Julian was trying to kill her! She opened her mouth to call for Deirdre, but no sound came out. She was so tired; every small movement became a herculean effort.
Poisoned, she decided, and felt her heart pounding painfully in her breast. Julian has poisoned me! Dragging herself over so that her head hung from the side of the bed, she stuck her finger down her throat and tried to empty her stomach. The top of her head was coming off; she had never known such pain. As the retching ended, so did the last of her strength, and she collapsed against the sheets, Julian’s name a question on her lips.
JULIAN WAS PACING the library like a caged lion. From the moment Lucy’s mount had come into the stableyard alone, he had been fighting a rising panic that had nothing to do with the façade of calm he usually presented to the world.
He and Tristan had ridden out immediately, finding Lucy’s unconscious body less than a mile from the estate, and Rule had wisely refrained from coming near him as Thorpe lifted Lucy carefully into his arms and gently carried her back to Hillcrest.
The doctor had been and gone, pronouncing her fit enough except for the concussed head, and had advised them to let her sleep until she awakened naturally. Before leaving, he handed Julian the button he had found clenched in Lucy’s hand.
Rachel and Deirdre had announced that they would take turns sitting with their patient, banishing Julian over his protests that he be allowed to watch over her while she slept. But as the day slipped slowly away, Lucy had shown no signs of stirring, and Julian was fast running out of patience.
Lucy had looked so pale, so defenseless, lying there in the road like a child’s carelessly discarded doll. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe the doctor, or Rachel, who had just moments ago at the dinner table told him that Lucy would be just fine by morning.
He had to see her for himself. He would see her for himself! His mind made up, he left the library and headed for the stairs, overtaking Rachel, who was just about to return to Lucy’s room.
“Deirdre went down to her dinner a little while ago,” she told the earl. “Tristan detained me with his latest theory—just as bloodthirsty as all his others—or else I would have been with Lucy by now.” Cocking her head to one side, she took in his lordship’s strained features. “I don’t suppose it would hurt anything to let you peek in on her for a moment.”
“I am not by nature a violent man, Rachel,” Julian returned amicably, “but may I suggest that it might be decidedly hurtful for you if you believed you could keep me away any longer.”
“You really do love her, don’t you?” she said, her heart reaching out to him.
“Yes, I really do,” he admitted solemnly. “So much so that I am sending the both of you away from here as soon as Lucy is fit to travel. I’m still not sure Lucy’s fall was an accident.”
They had reached Lucy’s bedchamber, and the first thing they noticed when Rachel opened the door was the sour smell that was overlaid with another, cloyingly sweet scent. “Laudanum?” Thorpe ventured, sniffing. “And something else?”
Rachel moved to light some candles. “It can’t be laudanum,” she told him. “The doctor specifically told me not to give her any—not with the injury being to her head.” She looked toward the bed, noticing that the covers had been dragged all to one side. “She must be stirring; the blankets are all tossed about. If you’ll just give me a moment to tidy her up a bit, you can… Oh, dear Lord, Lucy!”
Julian was at the bedside like a shot, taking in the sight of the soiled carpet and the unnatural stillness of Lucy’s body. “She’s not…?”
Rachel put her fingers to her niece’s neck. “She’s all right,” she reassured him, leaning over to stroke the damp curls back from Lucy’s forehead. “She must have been sick after Deirdre left.”
But Julian couldn’t believe it was that simple. Looking about him, he discovered Lucy’s tooth glass on the table beside the bed. Picking it up, he sniffed at it. “Laudanum,” he said, and his handsome features hardened into a tight mask. “Somebody’s given her laudanum. Thank God she didn’t keep it down!”
“But why?” Rachel asked, one hand to her mouth. “The doctor said—”
“Who was there when he told you?” Julian interrupted, already stripping off his coat.
“Why, nearly everyone, I suppose,” Rachel told him, trying hard to think. “Except you. You were upstairs here fighting with Deirdre because she wouldn’t let you in to see Lucy. Do you honestly think one of us…?” She let her question dangle, swallowing hard. “Of course you do.” She gasped as Julian threw back the covers and began unbuttoning Lucy’s gown. “What are you doing?”
“Get me a clean nightgown, will you?” he asked, already stripping Lucy to the buff. “Come now, woman, this is no time to go prudish on me. It’s going to be a long night as it is.”
“But you said Lucy had rid herself of the laudanum.”
“I don’t know if she got rid of all of it, just some of it. We have to wake her, and keep her awake, until the effects wear off.” Julian was having great difficulty in inserting Lucy’s seemingly boneless arms into the white lawn nightgown Rachel handed him.
“And what are you about?” Deirdre’s squawk of protest fell on deaf ears as Thorpe brought the gown down over Lucy’s hips.
Rachel filled in the maid on what had transpired before that indignant young woman could launch a physical assault on the earl, which it appeared she was fully capable of doing. “It’s right he is, ma’am,” Deirdre then said, all business. “We have to wake her. Are you going to walk her around a bit, my lord?” she asked Thorpe, springing to help him lift Lucy from the bed.
“I’ll walk her to hell and back if I have to,” Julian swore fiercely. “And when I’m sure she’s all right, I’m going to assemble everyone in this household and kill somebody!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
ONE OF LUCY’S ARMS wrapped around each of their shoulders, Julian and Deirdre half-dragged, half-carried Lucy up and down the length of the room, talking to her loudly and occasionally lightly slapping her cheeks.
It seemed like a lifetime had passed before Lucy started showing signs of coming around, and then it was as if she was reluctant to rejoin the land of the living. “No, Julian, no,” she would protest feebly. “Don’t want to, don’t want to.”
