A Trio of Dangers, page 17
“You’ll never keep up, Dickson.”
“Old Jemmie goes faster than you would think, Miss Whittaker. He used to be Mr. Jespers’ favorite hunter, but he don’t jump so well anymore. Lead on, Miss. We’ll keep up.”
“We need all speed, Dickson. Someone may be in danger.” That was the last she said for miles.
Old Jemmie did keep up with her fleet filly. The snow started, falling heavier and heavier until the land had a blanket of snow with more coming down. The horses galloped over the hard-frozen ground. The icy wind froze her face.
She drew up only when Dickson called, “Miss Whittaker! Miss Whittaker!”
She turned the filly’s tail to the wind. Dickson came up. Old Jemmie looked hardly blown. “What is it? We still have far to go.”
“That stand of trees marks the edge of the estate. Beyond that is Baron Gilbert’s land. We don’t cross over there.”
The flat way he gave the information had Maddy thinking the land servants knew much more than the house servants did. And certainly more than the gentry did. “Why not, Dickson?”
“We just don’t.”
She rolled her eyes at that answer. Yet when she pulled her horse around to continue, he grabbed the reins.
“Miss Whittaker, we don’t go over there. It’s not wise.”
“Tell me.”
“The baron, well, he’s known for odd habits.”
“Gossip won’t stop me, Dickson. What do you know?”
“My sister used to serve his lady. They got up to things, in their private chambers. He hurt her, his own lady. Left marks on her. Bruises. Cuts. But neither of them acted like those marks were anything to be concerned about. They acted as if nothing had happened. Only it did. My sister saw the bruises. She had to treat the cuts.”
Here was evidence that could be used in court. “Where is your sister now?”
“She left after his wife died. She said she wouldn’t serve him no more. She told me to stay with Mr. Jespers, no matter what. Then she left for London. We haven’t heard from her since.”
“Dickson, you should have told the squire all of this, after Anna Cooper was found murdered.”
“I never thought they were connected. I should have. I see it now. I thought it was a tramp. I hoped it was. Or a madman.”
“The baron may very well be a madman. How long ago did his wife die?”
“Three years.”
“And during those three years, what did he do with his need to commit violence?”
The man’s jaw dropped.
She narrowed her eyes, squinting at the tree-line boundary. She could just make out the chimney tops of the manor house. “Dickson, you ride on back.”
“No, Miss. You must not go alone.”
“I ought not to go at all, but Mellie is missing.”
“Mellie? The little kitchen maid?”
“Yes. You ride back, Dickson. Bring the squire, quick as you can. He should be back now. He will need his pistols, I think.”
“Miss Whittaker—.”
“I will not put myself in danger, but if I can delay the baron, if I can keep him from hurting Mellie—well, I must try. And you must fetch the squire. I left a note with James Footman, but I have no trust in his ability to follow an order. Go on, Dickson.”
He stared at her. She could see choices warring in his eyes, then he nodded. “I’ll go back, but only to get a musket.”
“You have one?”
“Use it against vermin that get into the chicks.”
“I suppose that qualifies the baron.”
Dickson suddenly grinned. “I suppose it does. You be safe, Miss.” He wheeled Old Jemmie and put his heels into the hunter. Jemmie sprang forward and began eating up the ground with those long legs.
Maddy didn’t want to go alone, not after Dickson’s recounting of his sister’s witness against the baron. The filly responded to her urging, and soon she was past the trees and racing across an open meadow toward the chimneys and roof-line of Gilbert’s manor.
Yet all the threads had untangled and woven themselves into a pattern. The baron had controlled his violence for years. After his wife died, how long before his need to inflict pain had tipped him into insanity? Maddy remembered his conversation at St. Valentine’s. He had said that London bored him. Could anyone be bored in such a large city? What if he had killed a woman in London? He would have to flee London before the authorities fastened upon him. And with murder so fresh on his mind, would his insanity not prompt him to try another one? And another? And a third?
Please God, not a third. Not Mellie.
As she saw the first buildings around the house, she had a great fear that his murders started with his wife.
With snow falling heavily, the house looked empty and unwelcoming. Smoke trickled thinly from two chimneys. At Chanfrons, every chimney put forth smoke, fire burning to keep the house warm against the frigid weather. Here the ground-floor windows were shuttered. Heavy curtains blocked the upper-story windows ... except one—there. Was that a light coming through incompletely closed curtains?
She rode to the stable. No one came to take her horse. She slipped off and led the filly into the stable. The pungent smell told that it needed mucking out. Carriage horses and a hunter looked over their stall gates at her. She threw a blanket over the filly’s back then left her horse in a stall. She carefully shut the stable door and crunched through freezing snow toward the house.
The kitchen garden was not walled like at Chanfrons. Weeds had overtaken the potagerie and encroached on the snow-blanketed paths. Maddy picked her way to the kitchen door, once painted blue but weathered and peeling now. She hesitated, then knocked the snow off the latch and went inside.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Gordon drew up his horse. “Look. That man’s coming fast.”
“From the direction of Sir Gilbert’s.”
With unspoken consent they rode toward the oncoming rider, closing the distance rapidly.
“That’s my old hunter,” Jespers said.
In less than five minutes, the man was close enough to see his rough clothes. And he didn’t wait to reach them. “Mr. Jespers!” he shouted. “Mr. Jespers, we have to hurry.”
“It’s my groom Dickson. What is it, man?”
The groom drew up. “Miss Whittaker, squire.”
Gordon tensed. “Is she hurt?” He had a nightmare vision of her falling from her horse onto the frozen ground. A fall at speed could cripple her.
“No, sir. She may be, sir, if we don’t get there in time.” As they reached him, he added, “She sent me to you.”
“Slow down, Dickson, and tell us from the beginning.”
“The maid Mellie, from the kitchen, she’s gone missing. Miss Whittaker thinks she’s at the baron’s. She’s gone there to find Mellie. She never should have, squire. She thinks he’s the murderer. I think she’s right.”
Jespers swore. “And you let her go alone?”
“There was no stopping her.”
“No,” Gordon agreed, although he was as ready to swear at the groom and at Maddy and at the baron. If Gilbert hurt her—if he even threatened her, Gordon would thrash him. “Not once she has the bit in her teeth. Why did she fasten on the baron as the murderer?”
“He’s a vile man, my lord. I didn’t tell you earlier, squire. I should have, Miss Whittaker said, and she’s right, but it wasn’t my secret to tell you. He used to beat his wife when they were private.”
“I never knew,” Jespers muttered. “She gave no sign of any abuse.”
“She might not have thought of it like that,” Gordon said, even though his gut clenched at what the lady must have endured.
“How do you know this, Dickson?”
“My sister told me. She was maid to his lady.”
“I had forgotten that.”
Gordon didn’t wait for more backstory. “Did anyone else go with Miss Whittaker?”
“No one, sir. She sent me back to fetch you and to get my musket.”
“No need. I’ve my pistols. Here’s one for you.” He reached inside his coat and produced a pistol which he handed to Jespers. “How far ahead of us is she, Dickson?”
“I left her at the boundary, my lord. It’ll be more than a half-hour before we get to the manor. We need to hurry, squire.”
“He won’t hurt Maddy,” Jespers said. “She’s a young woman of rank. He’s been preying on servants and country girls.”
Gordon swung his horse around. “In his blood lust, Gilbert won’t care about that. Lead on, Dickson.”
Chapter 15 ~~ Saturday, 22nd February
The kitchen was cold and dark. The barest fire gleamed in the hearth. A woman snored at the table. Her tousled head rested on fleshy arms. An overturned tankard lay at her elbow. Maddy shook the woman’s shoulder.
She roused to say “Lemme ‘lone”, then her head dropped down.
Hands on her waist, Maddy looked around the kitchen. She shuddered at the vermin crawling around the filth scattered over the boards. No help was here. The only door opened to a badly lit corridor, either end stretching into darkness. Stairs beckoned a few feet away. Wanting to escape the growing shadows, she hurried upstairs.
Her breath fogged in the cold entrance hall. Its marble floors, stained and grimed, spanned the manor front to back. A wide stair circled up. Patterned spaces unfaded on the wallpaper revealed that paintings had once hung there. The stair’s curving banister was unpolished. The brass doorknobs were all dull. Maddy opened a door to an empty room, with no furniture and no drapes over the shuttered windows. Badly shuttered, for light crept through cracks in the boards covering the windows.
Another door opened to a library with tall windows that were unshuttered, facing to the front of the house. The room was in complete disarray, books spilled on the floor, a single chair with stacks of books piled around it, and the shelves emptied. Another door opened to what must have once been a grand dining room.
A fourth door revealed a few pieces of furniture, but the room was undusted, the mirror over the mantel cracked with shards of it scattered over the bare floor.
She stepped back into the main hall and eyed the circling staircase. A large window above admitted the snow-dimmed daylight. Gathering the cloak around her, she took a deep breath and climbed the stairs.
The stair landed on a geometric parquet that must once have shown the beauty of its wood but looked dull and weary. Long halls marched off from either side, venturing the length of the house. Uncurtained windows were foggy squares at the corridors’ ends.
Maddy could see no difference in the corridors. She strained to hear. Was that a man’s voice? It didn’t continue. Had a woman moaned, or was that the rising wind finding its way into the house?
She took a few steps into the leftside corridor then paused to listen. Was that—that was the sibilant hiss of a cane? And again, faster, harder. She had hoped never to hear that again.
A definite moan, more like an animal’s whimper.
And a thud.
Maddy started for the sounds. As she neared, she saw one of the doors halfway down was open.
Then a bulky shape separated from the shadows and blocked her progress.
She halted and glared at the guard. She registered his flattened nose and thready white hair, his several layers of drab clothes from which a musty smell arose. He returned her glare, equal in anger. “Who might ye be?”
“I am Madeleine Whittaker, a guest of Squire Jespers. Who are you?”
“Stebbens. What ye doin’ here?”
Those few doors away, a man spoke. She couldn’t hear his words clearly
“We have a servant missing,” she informed the guard. Thinking Gilbert lorded it over his servants, she used a haughty tone. But this man was not cowed.
“An’ ye think ye’ll find her here?” He laughed.
Then the cane swished through the air. It thudded when it struck. The whimper broke, became thread.
“Obviously I will,” and Maddy tried to push past him.
He grabbed her arm. “Don’t be disturbin’ the master.”
“Unhand me,” she snapped. He obeyed with an alacrity she wished Mr. Hunnicutt had had. She headed for the open door.
“No, miss, don’t go in there,” and he interposed himself with an agility that belied his age. “It’s better if’n ye don’t.”
The cane hit. The moan came. The cane hit. No moan came.
“Stebbens, move out of my way.”
“No, miss. The master won’t like it.”
“Your master has killed two women. He will not kill a third. Help me to help her.”
“Ye don’t interrupt the master when he’s at his business.”
“Is his business murder?”
The cane hadn’t ceased its work. Remembering the bruises inflicted by Jonno’s tutor before she stopped him with the judicious application of her mother’s prize Meissen figurine, Maddy felt like throwing up. “Get out of my way, Stebbens.”
He didn’t move, so she shoved past him.
The sight nearly disgorged her food.
Mellie lay tied to the bed. Cane marks welted her bare skin, her legs, her arms, and her belly. Thin lines bled on her forearms and shoulders and breasts. And as Maddy stood appalled, Sir Byron Gilbert climbed onto the bed and straddled the girl. He was shirtless. Sweat had slicked his body. This was not the refined gentleman who had dined at Chanfrons.
He put his hands on the maid’s neck.
“Stop!” She stumbled into the room, but her revulsion kept her back from the bed.
Without removing his hands, he turned his head. The glitter in his dark eyes scared her. Then he blinked, and the savage lines left his face. He smiled, and Maddy’s fear tripled. “Miss Whittaker. Have you come to play my game?”
Mellie moaned.
He turned back to the maid beneath him. He re-positioned his hands then squeezed.
The girl gurgled. She heaved under him, her need to breathe giving her new life.
“Stop!” Maddy started forward, but Stebbens grabbed her arms from behind. No matter how she twisted and jerked, no matter how she kicked, he stood out of reach, his grip on her upper arms painful. She writhed. She flung her body to one side and managed to get one arm free.
“Master!” he called as Maddy turned into his grip and aimed a fist for the side of his head. He blocked her blow then grabbed her hand and bore it downward.
She tried to kick him again, hampered by the voluminous skirt of her habit.
Gilbert was suddenly there. He jerked at the cloak hanging from her shoulders, and the thin string that tied it broke. As she flailed at both of them, he tangled her arms in the fabric. Maddy fought free of the fabric only to have Stebbens grab her wrists. He jerked them behind her, and the baron tied them together with a strip of cloth. Gripping her shoulders, Gilbert whirled her to face him. Stebbens looped another strip of cloth at her elbows and tied that. She tried to bend forward. She tried to twist, but the baron held her still.
“No more fighting, pretty Miss Whittaker.” His right hand lifted. He clasped her neck.
She inhaled sharply. The glitter was back in his eyes. He liked fear, perhaps as much as he liked inflicting pain. She drove her fear over into anger. “How dare you treat me this way.”
He smiled. He removed his left hand, and Stebbens quickly grabbed her shoulders to hold her still.
Gilbert touched her cheek. She jerked her head away. He seized her hair to hold her head still. The right hand left her throat. Before she could feel relief, he traced his fingers over her cheeks, her eyelids, her brow, then down her nose to her lips. She tried to bite him. He snatched his hand back.
“A fighter. I will enjoy showing you what I like.” He again clasped her neck. When he squeezed, she became afraid for her life. He released her then laughed when she inhaled great gulps of air. He laughed again when Stebbens clamped a hand over her mouth. Gilbert nodded. “You are a prize, Stebbens. You know exactly what must happen. I will enjoy taming Miss Madeleine Whittaker. I have thought about it for a week. Such a lovely neck. This will be an afternoon to remember.”
“Aye, master.”
“Does anyone know she is here?”
“I do not know, master.”
“She may have told someone. We must be quick.”
Maddy watched wide-eyed as the baron returned to the bed. Once again he climbed on and straddled Mellie. The young maid had revived a little, and she tugged at her bonds as he stroked her abused neck and breasts. When her eyes flickered open, she cried out and struggled harder. Maddy thought he was going to rape the girl, the way he touched her and then his crotch, but then he put his hands on Mellie’s neck and squeezed.
The maid sputtered, gurgled. She heaved under him and writhed against the cloth ties. Her face suffused red. Her eyes bulged. And Maddy couldn’t watch anymore.
She fought against Stebbens, but she was held and trussed as tightly as one of Mrs. Ridges’ roasted birds. She could not even turn away. Her only control was to shut her eyes ... and she began to pray.
The sounds of Mellie’s struggles faded.
Cloth rustled.
She opened her eyes.
The baron untied the last restraint. He climbed off the bed, but Maddy had no eyes for him. She stared at the maid, praying ... until Gilbert grabbed Mellie’s leg and dragged her body off the bed. He dumped it on the floor then turned to Stebbens.
“Bring her.”
She fought when they untrussed her but soon found herself tied as Mellie had been. The baron picked up a long knife. He slipped a finger down the blade, and she saw with horror the smear of blood on it. His arm lifted. She screamed as he stabbed between her legs. She sobbed, and only then did she realize he hadn’t hurt her.
“Pretty Miss Whittaker. Are you finally afraid?”
“Why are you doing this?”
He didn’t answer, just began cutting the cloth of her habit. He jerked the knife so hard through the heavy wool that the tug of cloth jolted her body.
