A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem, page 25
Nothing. Kate knew that, and though she was sturdier than most women, she wasn’t exactly comforted by the notion. And she hadn’t forgotten that someone had snuck inside to attack her.
“I won’t be venturing out,” she said. “But neither will I sit here like Patience upon a monument either.”
“Oh Lord, when you start quoting Shakespeare, I know we’re in trouble.” Caro grinned. “What is our plan?”
“Nothing too outlandish.” Though she’d thought her fatigue had caught up with her, the tea and conversation had reinvigorated her. “Were the rest of Philbrick’s papers from the folly moved into the attics this morning, as I asked?”
“They were.” A slow smile broke across Caro’s face. “I take it we’re headed upstairs?”
“We are indeed.” Kate rose. “Since no letters between Philbrick and Delia were found with Green’s things, it occurs to me that maybe he never had them in the first place.”
“But you already know what happened between them. Why do you need letters, too?” Caro asked with a frown.
Kate considered her question. “Something about the way Philbrick abandoned Delia to her father doesn’t make sense to me. He knew what sort of man Hale was. He took her away after all. But to leave her there after having met the man. It makes no sense.”
“I agree,” said Caro.
“Though I fear poor Ludwig is going to be quite put out with me for taking you away.” Kate eyed the way the cat lolled in repose on his mistress’s lap.
“Like every man, he will have to learn to live with the occasional disappointment.” Caro lifted the Siamese and set him down in his basket. As predicted, he made his displeasure known.
But when they got to the door, instead of remaining where Caro had placed him, Ludwig darted out the door and raced down the hall.
“Oh, infernal beast,” Caro muttered. “I’ll have to go after him. I fear he’ll tear to shreds any servant who attempts to catch him.”
“I’ll help.” Kate had been friends with Caro now long enough to know that Ludwig wouldn’t allow himself to be captured until he was good and ready, but she also knew that Caro would appreciate the company. “Though I might go change my gown first. I need to wash the travel dirt from my face.”
“No, you go on up to the attics when you’re finished.” Caro was already looking down the hall in the direction her cat had gone. “I’ll come up as soon as I find him.”
If she were honest, Kate had to admit that she would rather investigate the attics than chase after a cat who didn’t wish to be caught.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” Caro said over her shoulder. “I’ll be up in a trice.”
And a half hour later when Kate reached the doorway leading to the attics, a lamp in her hand so she would be able to see her way inside, the light shining from the open door told her Caro had been right. She’d found the cat as quickly as she’d predicted.
“The beast has been tamed then?” she called, pushing open the door and stepping into the room. It was brightly lit, thanks to the lanterns hanging on hooks from the ceiling. But she didn’t see Caro anywhere. “Caro? Are you here?”
The room was crowded with everything from wardrobes to chests to lamps to trunks. And on the far wall beneath the dormer windows, she recognized some of the trunks that had been stored in the folly.
Deciding that Caro must have had to leave again for some reason, she set down her own lamp and made a methodical search for Philbrick’s things.
She’d just knelt down before a trunk when she heard footsteps. Some instinct told her it wasn’t Caro.
Spying a walking stick lying on the floor nearby, she bent to pick it up—thinking to use it as a weapon. But just as she bent forward, she felt movement behind her.
Rolling to the floor, she got to her feet and swung. But her assailant jumped away just in time.
She gasped. “Mr. Thompson?”
Reeve Thompson smiled, but it didn’t meet his eyes. “I beg you will call me by my proper name, Lady Katherine. After all, you’ve gone to such a lot of trouble to find me.”
And suddenly, it all fell into place.
“Bastian Hale.”
“I prefer my actual surname, if you please.” He bowed. “Bastian Philbrick, at your service.”
* * *
The two men arrived back at the manor house, some thirty minutes later, to find Caro waiting for them, her face drawn.
“Kate is gone,” she blurted out before they’d even taken off their coats. “I was supposed to go with her to search the attics but I had to chase Ludwig and he didn’t want to be found and it took longer than I expected and by the time I got there she was gone and it’s all my fault.”
It was a good thing Valentine was there because all Eversham had heard of Caro’s speech was the fact that Katherine was gone.
“Easy there,” the other man said with more patience than Eversham had ever heard him use with Miss Hardcastle. “Let’s go take a look at the attics and see if there are any clues, shall we?”
They began climbing the stairs, but before they could get past the first landing, they were assailed by the other guests, who began pouring from the open door of the drawing room.
“What’s going on?” Lady Eggleston demanded, clutching her husband’s arm. “I heard Miss Hardcastle shouting. Has there been another murder?”
Eversham was in no mood for the high-strung peeress’s questions. “I want all of you to go back into the drawing room and shut the door.”
“I say, Eversham, you can’t—” Lord Eggleston began, but was interrupted by Valentine.
“He’s from Scotland Yard, Eggleston.” Val indicated with a wave of his hand that they should follow Eversham’s instructions. “In this house, he can do as he likes.”
The guests murmured among themselves and were turning to go back into the drawing room when Eversham thought to do a head count. “Where is Mr. Thompson?”
Miss Barton turned back. “I haven’t seen him all afternoon. I thought perhaps he’d taken ill.” Her cheeks colored as she spoke. It was obvious that she’d developed a tender spot for Thompson.
Eversham thanked her, and when the rest of the guests were asked, none of them could account for the missing man either.
Once they were on their way upstairs again, Valentine said, “Perhaps she got an impulse to go for a walk?”
“No.” Caro’s earlier agitation had calmed somewhat. “Kate was quite firm about remaining indoors because you’d asked her to, Eversham.”
In this instance, Eversham thought with a sinking feeling, telling Katherine to remain at Thornfield may have put her in greater danger than if she’d left.
“What do you know about Thompson?” he asked Valentine as they neared the attics. “You said before that you met him in London?”
“Yes.” Val opened the door to the upper room. “I met him at my club. He’d expressed an interest in visiting the Lakes sometime before and I thought he’d make an interesting addition to the party.”
“But you don’t know anything about his family?” Eversham pressed. He thought about the young man’s hair, which was shot through with the same red highlights he’d seen in what remained of Reverend Hale’s natural color.
“No, nothing,” Val said as they stepped into the attics. “I didn’t think I needed to. We were introduced by mutual friends.”
“I think we may have found the missing Mr. Bastian Hale.” Eversham pushed past the other two to scan the room for any trace of Katherine.
“Dear God.” Caro’s voice betrayed every fear that Eversham felt. “Do you really think it’s him?”
“We’ve been wondering all day where he was.” Val clenched his fists. “And this whole time he’s been right here under our noses posing as Reeve Thompson.”
“He helped me search for Ludwig,” Caro said, coming to a stop in the middle of the attic floor. “I told him where she was. I said we were searching the attics and he disappeared.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Val told her. “It’s my fault for inviting him here in the first place. I should have known better than to invite a relative stranger into my home. And now Kate is in danger because of it.”
While they talked, Eversham moved to the corner of the attic where he recognized some of the crates and trunks from the folly. His eyes lit on the trunk Kate had hurt her finger on and had to look away before the ache of the memory could assail him. He didn’t have time for sentiment now. He had to think clearly so that he could find her.
“Look.” Val strode forward and handed him a page. “It was attached with this to the wall.”
Valentine held up a small knife. Eversham cursed.
He looked at the page and saw it was one of Philbrick’s poems, The Maze.
“Is there a maze on this property?” he asked, his anxiety for Katherine growing by the minute.
“We saw it on our way to the folly.” Caro took the note from Val before returning it. “It’s mostly grown over now.”
“There are ways to get in if you know where to look,” Valentine said, handing the note back to Eversham. “Come, I’ll take you.”
This man and his sister had already killed multiple times. They’d kidnapped Katherine to set a trap for him. He had no intention of letting her, or anyone else, get hurt because of him.
“Give me the knife.” When Val handed it over, Eversham asked, “Do you have any weapons of your own in the house?”
“Any number of them in the gun room for hunting,” the other man answered.
They were already striding out of the attics and into the hallway when Caro called out. “Wait! I have an idea.”
Biting back impatience, Eversham turned, gesturing for her to hurry up.
“Bastian isn’t stupid,” Caro said. “The entire time we’ve been searching for him, he’s been right under our noses. If you go barging in demanding he hand over Kate, he’ll be ready for you.”
“I don’t care,” Eversham said. “All that matters is getting her away from him alive and in one piece.”
“Think, Eversham. You need to do something to put him off balance.”
“What do you have in mind, Caro?” Val asked, his expression grave but curious.
“It may not work if Emily Hale has joined her brother,” she warned, “but we haven’t got much choice. If we arrive and see her there, we’ll have to adjust accordingly.”
Eversham bit back a groan of impatience.
“The short version is that I’ll put on a veil and pretend to be Emily Hale,” Caro said. “Then, once we see she’s not there, one of you will lead me out—I’ll be wearing the veil to hide my face. We’ll offer to trade me—that is, Emily—for Kate. And instead of actually giving me to him, you’ll get Kate back and capture Bastian.”
Eversham blinked. It was risky. Especially if Emily Hale did turn out to be there. Though they hadn’t seen her on their way into Lewiston, it was entirely possible she’d come back to the Hall after visiting Tallant. She’d had a reason for sending Eversham away from Thornfield and into the village after all.
Still, Caro’s plan would give them an option for distracting Bastian should they find him alone.
But they didn’t have much time. “It might work.” He nodded. “But you need to hurry. He’s had Katherine for far too long as it is.”
“You have hidden depths, Miss Hardcastle.” The admiration in Valentine’s voice was not as grudging as it might once have been.
“Wait until it works before you give me too much praise.” She frowned.
Then she went upstairs to retrieve her veil.
“We’ll get her back,” Val told Eversham as they hurried downstairs to the gun room.
Eversham couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat.
The alternative didn’t bear thinking of.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The middle of the Thornfield Hall maze wasn’t as overgrown as Kate would have imagined from the outside.
Yes, the shrubs were leggy and showed only a vague resemblance to what once must have been precisely trimmed, squared-off walls of greenery. But the paths she and Bastian had followed once they’d pressed into the narrow corner opening were easy enough to see. And Kate only occasionally felt the prickly drag of branches against her bare arms, which her captor had bound behind her back with a silk stocking. She’d lost her shawl somewhere along the way, and the chill of the early evening air was already beginning to bring gooseflesh up on her exposed skin.
Again and again she struggled with the knot around her wrists, grateful Bastian couldn’t see her hands from where he stood.
From her seated position on the scrolled ironwork bench in the center of the open-air room, she wondered whether the others had found Bastian’s message on the wall. She hadn’t been able to see what it was—it looked like a poem—but surely it contained a clue as to where she’d been taken. Andrew was clever. Whatever it was, he’d figure out what it meant and come to her.
He had to.
She had things she needed to say.
If he asked her now, her answer to his marriage proposal would be entirely different than it had been earlier.
There was nothing like imminent danger that made one reassess one’s priorities. “Where is your sweetheart, Lady Katherine?” Bastian said through clenched teeth from where he paced around the enclosure. “I cannot imagine little Caro hasn’t sounded the alarm by now.”
“Perhaps he and Lord Valentine are still in the village searching for your sister.” Kate hoped to make him as fearful as he’d made her. “Did you know she came to Thornfield today? That was taking quite a risk, don’t you think?”
But if she’d hoped to rile him, she was going to need to be more forceful than that. “They won’t find her.” Bastian smiled slyly. “She’s far too clever for the likes of Inspector Eversham. We’ve been ahead of him every step of the way.”
As if remembering something, he raised one finger in the air in a dramatic gesture. “I almost forgot to thank you, Lady Katherine. Your interview with Lizzie Grainger really was a stroke of luck for us. Not only did it encourage Eversham’s superiors to take him off the case, but Lizzie’s description gave old Wargrove somebody to arrest.
“Of course,” he said with a smile, “it matched me, too. But I was too smart to let them catch me.”
Kate gasped. She’d been so busy worrying, she hadn’t even thought about Lizzie’s description. Of course it had been Bastian she’d seen.
“Don’t feel too bad, dear lady,” her captor continued. “I doubt he’d have been able to find us even if he had remained on the case. We learned subterfuge from the cradle, after all. Impossible not to in that house.”
“Yes, we met your grandfather today.” Kate thought that perhaps if she could keep him talking long enough, she’d be able to loosen her bonds. “He was quite unpleasant.”
She’d expected him to scowl, but to her surprise, the young man laughed, albeit bitterly. “Unpleasant, you say. It’s as if you’re talking about a visitor to afternoon tea who wouldn’t stop eating all the biscuits.”
“Hardly that.” Kate tried to infuse her voice with sympathy. “I thought he was horrible. And the way he treated you, your sister, and your mother was unconscionable.”
He made a sound of disgust. “He made our lives a misery. And for what? When Emily found the marriage lines, I thought it must be some sort of trick. I could never have imagined he could hate us enough to present us to the world as bastards when we were just as legitimate as any other poor fool in his congregation. I’d even absorbed enough of his Bible thumping to believe that we maybe even deserved his cruelty. But those lines told us everything we needed to know about the Reverend Simeon Hale.”
“Why didn’t you kill him?” As long as they were here and Bastian seemed willing to talk, Kate decided to ask the question that had been bothering her ever since they’d laid eyes on the twins’ grandfather that morning. “I should have thought that he would be the first you’d punish. Not strangers in London who’d never done you any harm.”
She shifted in her seat as the hard iron of the bench was beginning to make her back ache. As she moved, her hand caught on a sharp bit of scrollwork and she only just kept from showing her surprised pain to her captor.
But her question had distracted him enough that he didn’t notice the change in her expression. “I did consider it,” he said thoughtfully. “We both did. But once we’d thought a little, we realized that it would harm him more to see how we’d perverted his precious Commandments. So, we stole the purse he kept hidden away in his study and left that day for London.”
His expression darkened. “I was foolish enough to think that all we needed was to show the marriage lines in town and we’d be welcomed as the long-lost children of the great Sebastian Philbrick. But no one believed us. And a little research told me he’d died penniless. So we changed our plans. If we couldn’t go back to Crossmere triumphant as our true selves, we’d have to make sure that Grandfather saw tidings of our new lives in the newspaper.”
While he spoke, Kate had worked her hands in such a way that she was able to lift the coiled stocking around her wrists over the protruding piece of iron on the back of the bench. So slowly that her movements couldn’t be detected, she rubbed the binding across the iron in a sawing motion.
“How could he know that you were the ones responsible for the killings?” she asked, making a show of attention to his story, lest he figure out the reason for her distraction.
“He drilled the Ten Commandments into us from the moment we learned to speak.” Bastian’s smile was gleeful like a child’s, and Kate felt the chill right down to her bones. “I told him to look for us in the papers. I would have sent him a letter saying as much, of course, but that old brute would have given our names to the police without a backward glance.”
Kate knew intuitively that he had enjoyed sending messages to his sadistic grandfather with the bodies of his victims, but it was a testament to the insularity of Bastian’s thinking that he and Emily had assumed that Hale would be able to recognize their handiwork just from the use of the Ten Commandments, which were known the world over as tenets of the Christian faith.
