Aura of Magic, page 28
Not even stopping to consider what he was doing, he rode his horse close to the wall, grasped the top of the stones, and climbed up.
With luck, Theo could see him through his telescope from the top of the hill. Pascoe stood and crossed his arms above his head, signaling danger, but he wasn’t waiting around for help. He stood there a moment under the sullen skies, studying the blackened bricks of the massive foundry. The glass windows had blown out of the main building in the fire. Fin had ordered them boarded up to prevent children from exploring and hurting themselves. The chimneys to the modern blast furnaces had caught the worst of the heat. They looked in danger of toppling.
The grounds contained sheds and warehouses and loading docks that were in better condition. If Darrow had chosen to hide here, he had plenty of places from which to choose. But if he was concealing Bridey. . .
He would put her in the worst place he could think of—in the upper stories of the burned-out building where the floors were little more than charred timber.
Trying very hard not to think of what a criminal like Darrow might do to a woman he despised, Pascoe dropped to the ground on the far side of the wall. He needed Erran’s compelling voice right now to call the bastard out of hiding.
The stench of fear was high, but it wasn’t Bridey’s fear. Standing behind a shed, Pascoe considered that. How did he know it was fear he smelled, much less whose? He’d used this instinct all his life, letting it guide his negotiations, but he’d never needed to identify whose fear he smelled. He just knew that when he smelled it, it was time to go in for the kill. If he’d been a gambler, he’d have swept the table.
But he wasn’t a gambler. He liked certainty. Security. Knowledge was power. And he knew Darrow was here, because his stench was overpowering. Fear must be pouring off his skin like sweat.
Maybe ladies didn’t sweat fear. Pascoe smiled darkly to himself as he rummaged through the tool shed. Maybe he was as odd as his children. Maybe the entire populace had secret gifts they didn’t understand. He’d take up a study of the phenomenon as soon as he nailed Darrow to a door and found Bridey. He couldn’t smell her gardenias.
She’d said she didn’t wear perfume. What did his smelling gardenias on her signify?
Damn, but he was losing his mind.
He hefted a pickax and decided he might as well fly his true colors, because his career would be well and truly over when this was done.
Shoving a crowbar under his arm as if it were the walking stick he’d left behind, tucking his riding crop into his waistband, Pascoe carried the ax over his shoulder and followed the stench of fear on the wind. He’d never performed manual labor, but there was a first time for everything.
The ache in his wounded shoulder reminded him that Darrow most likely had a shotgun. If he wanted to find Bridey, direct assault would have to be a last resort, no matter how murderous he felt.
The wind carried him to the front office of the burned out building. Given the danger of charred timbers, that didn’t make good sense from a safety standard. But a hiding place that dangerous would certainly discourage men with brains from entering. Fortunately, Pascoe was in too much fury to care.
“I wanted to defeat you on legal grounds,” he roared his frustration at the boarded up building. “You could have enjoyed a nice tropical stay in New South Wales and employed your corruption there, taking advantage of all the other convicts.”
Calculating that Darrow would have to open a door to shoot, Pascoe concealed himself behind an abandoned oxen wagon. He peered around the high wooden side to watch the office for any indication that he wasn’t completely out of his skull.
Apparently impervious to insults—provided he was even in there—Darrow did not reveal himself.
“I can stay here all day and into the night,” Pascoe called. “I’ve spent sleepless nights aplenty dealing with thugs far worse than you. You’re soft, Darrow. You’re rotted at the core. Tell us where to find Lady Carstairs and maybe we won’t hang you.”
Where had that “we” and “us” come from? The air reeked of fear—and of something less identifiable. Defiance? He jerked his head around.
On the road from the village to the foundry marched an entire army of villagers, led by Theo, Erran, and Will. And Fin and the dogs, of course.
He was putting an entire village in danger of flying bullets and collapsing buildings. His Majesty would not only cut off his services, he’d cut off his head.
Pascoe didn’t care. He was tired of smiling and manipulating and dealing politely with thieves and selfish arrogance and greed. Wishing for swords and the days of dragon slayers, he set down his crowbar, hefted the pickax, spun in a circle until he had the heft—and flung it with all the force of his body.
He couldn’t hope to cause damage from this distance, but the pointed edge actually struck the charred wood with enough force to cause a leather hinge to fail. The slatted door sagged.
The stench of fear escalated. The rat was trapped. How many shotguns could he have? How quickly could he load one? Worse yet, what if there was a rear door to the office allowing the rat to scamper out through the foundry? It must not be a desirable solution if Darrow lingered in the office instead of fleeing.
“Fine then,” Pascoe shouted at the sagging door. “We gave you an opportunity to come out alive. Now you’ll have to run like the rodent you are. We’ll have to assume you’re guilty, and let the first man to catch you deal with you as he must.
He sounded like a blithering idiot shouting at ghosts. With Bridey at risk, he’d blither all he wanted.
He signaled the men pouring through the gates, carrying pitchforks and axes and any tool they could find. “Surround the building! Lady Carstairs is trapped in there!”
A woman’s cry of fury erupted in the back of the mob, followed by more as the women burst through the ranks of men and rushed heedlessly for the building.
Pascoe wanted to feel guilt at putting them in the line of danger, but he was too appalled and astonished to do more than gape, as did most of the men. Using rakes and brooms and any utensil they’d carried with them, the women surrounded the building to rip at boarded up windows.
They’d drive Oscar out of a certainty.
A shotgun blast tore through the sagging door, hitting the oxen wagon where Pascoe stood. Splinters flew, but the women didn’t even look up from their tasks. One cried in triumph as she broke through. Bridey had friends, whether she knew it or not.
Now that Darrow had shot his wad, one of the younger females grabbed the crowbar Pascoe had left at his feet and—looking murderous—went for the now-shattered timbers of the door.
Standing closer to the corner of the building, Pascoe could see what the crowd in front did not—the rat scurrying out a half-uncovered window in back, one overlooking the dangerously steep, rocky hillside.
Chapter 29
Digging her fingernails under a board covering the window, Bridey jumped at the blast of a shotgun in the distance. Who was shooting whom? Pascoe! Panicking, she tore harder at the planks, twisting her wrists in their bindings to do so. Her fingers were already bleeding, but with the strength of rage and fear, she pried a single board from its nails.
A crack of daylight streamed in. Disappointingly, she could see nothing other than the rough hillside below. She was in the back of the building, where no one could reach her, even with a ladder.
“Wretched, miserable toad. . .” She swung to study her prison now that she had light. The room had only one window and one door. Her only hope of escape was in taking down the door—an utterly impossible task even had she been a man of muscle.
Terrified for Pascoe, she studied the wrought iron handle. Hoping for a miracle, she shook it with her bound hands. Locked. There wasn’t any keyhole. Who put locks on the outside of a door?
Darrow, of course. She wondered who he’d meant to hold prisoner in this room besides her.
She got down on her knees and peered through the crack. In the dark, it wasn’t easy to see, but she didn’t think she saw a wooden bar. Besides, the door opened in.
That meant there was a thumb latch, like back at the house—a flat piece of iron hooked over the latch, holding the door shut.
The door looked scorched but solid. Still, what choice did she have? Using her bound hands, she grasped the board she’d pried off the window and slammed the panel in hopes of loosening the latch on the other side.
To her astonishment, she heard metal hit the floor.
Dropping to her knees, she tried to peer under the door. Enough light filtered through the newly-opened window that she thought she might see a metal peg just a few inches away. A slender peg might fit in the crack between door and jamb and allow her to lift the latch, if she could just reach the peg.
She needed a wire or a bar or. . . paper.
She glanced around the dark shadows of the room. Surely these upstairs offices must have stored design books or invoices over the years. The fire apparently hadn’t consumed this rear part of the building as badly as the front, where the furnaces were located. Fin would have had the valuable material carried out and stored somewhere safe but. . .
Underneath the table. She crawled over on her knees and elbows, then sat to kick her legs beneath the drawing table, grateful she was wearing a traveling skirt and not an acre of petticoats.
A sheaf of drawing paper coated in dust rolled out. Trying not to feel triumphant just yet, she listened to what sounded like an angry mob screaming in the distance. Even if she should shout her location, they wouldn’t hear her. For all she knew rioters were setting fire to the building. Or hoping to burn her as a witch.
Fear and hope escalating equally, she crawled back to the door with the paper gripped between her bound hands. Biting her lip as the shouts grew louder, she pressed the rolled up paper back and forth until it was almost flat. The curled edges would make it difficult. . .
Holding her breath, she slid the heavy paper under the door and tried to work it beneath the peg. She could scarcely see in the dim gray light, and her own shadow blocked the best of it. Biting back foul curses, she persevered.
A man’s voice rose above the mob’s, but it wasn’t Pascoe’s. Where was Pascoe? What was happening out there? She gritted her teeth and worked harder.
Finally finding the right angle, she maneuvered the paper under the hunk of metal. Now came the terrible part. What if the peg was too big to fit under the door? She might rip the door off with her bare hands in frustration. Gently, so as not to dislodge the captive object, she dragged the paper toward her.
The peg slid under the door just as if it had been designed to do so. Weeping, Bridey cradled the slim metal awkwardly in her bleeding hands. She kneeled at the door, trying to slide the metal between door and jamb. Her fingers trembled, and her knuckles clumsily rubbed the handle. The peg fell and almost bounced beneath the door again.
“Sodding, hateful beast of a three-toed. . .” With difficulty, she gripped the slim peg again.
The man’s mellow baritone outside rose louder, and the cries of the mob diminished enough to hear dogs howling. What, by all that was holy, was going on out there? Were they coming for her?
Not knowing whether to fear her old friends might search for her and plunge through the charred holes to their deaths—or set fire to the building—she hurried.
Grim satisfaction tamped Pascoe’s rage as he raced after the human rat scuttling for the unfenced hillside. The rough terrain was inhospitable to horses and wagons. Darrow had evidently deemed the hill too steep for thieves and had pinched pennies by not continuing the wall around. The hill might keep thieves out, but it didn’t keep one from escaping that way.
The mob was still pouring through the front gates, unable to see Darrow’s flight. This time, Pascoe refused to let him go. He might let the king deal with his godson if he was just a thief, but no man harmed a lady and endangered an earl without consequences. That Darrow had hidden here instead of going to London, and ran now instead of defending himself, all but sealed his guilt. He had proved himself unfit for civilization.
Pascoe had to pray that his intrepid Bridey was unharmed, and his nephews would find her, because they weren’t close enough to reach Darrow. No one—especially Bridey—would be safe while a madman like that existed to kill witnesses. Just the thought that Darrow might have already hurt Bridey had him sweating.
He might have spent much of his time in offices, but in the king’s service, he’d also ridden the length and breadth of the kingdom more times than most. And he had a cold-blooded fury to drive him, even though he hadn’t indulged in rock climbing since his misspent youth.
Pascoe’s riding gloves helped him grasp rocks and roots, and his sturdy boots held him steady as he scrambled down the hillside toward the scrub-strewn dale. His injured shoulder ached like the devil from flinging the pickax, but he’d suffered worse.
With neither boots nor gloves, Darrow was scuttling like a crab over the rocks, causing small rockslides even in the mud. His soft shoes and pencil-grubbing hands slipped on a particularly nasty slope. With a cry, he slid to his knees.
Pascoe pounced. Grabbing the back of Darrow’s coat, he yanked him to his feet and plowed his fist into the bastard’s unshaven jaw. Action instead of words felt good. It felt damned good. He caught Darrow’s neckcloth and lifted him off his feet, contemplating strangling him.
“You can’t do this,” Darrow shouted, flinging wild punches at Pascoe’s torso while Pascoe held him at arm’s length. “This is my land by right of the king! He’ll have your head.”
“I’ll have yours first.” With gratification, he released the murderous bastard and drove his fist into Darrow’s soft gut. “Killing your brother requires execution.”
“Did he die this time?” Darrow asked, almost with hope. “Without me, he would have been cheated out of everything, but he quit listening to me. He was too weak to do what needed to be done, but I’m not. He had to go.” He struggled to his feet.
That was confession enough for Pascoe. He caught Darrow’s shoulder, twisted him around, and plowed a fist into his jaw again, sending the dastard sprawling backward.
Shouts indicated the mob had finally extended around the building, and he had an audience. He didn’t care. All the years of wanting to pound sense into rapacious clods who thought themselves above honest, hardworking men poured into his fists. He grabbed Darrow when he scrambled to his knees, straightened him out, then pummeled him repeatedly, as they wrestled and slid down the hill.
“Pascoe, stop that right now before you break your fool neck!”
The joy of Bridey’s blessed shout pierced his rage, jerking him back to civilization. With delight and trepidation, Pascoe glanced to the top of the hill, where she was sliding from rock to rock to reach him, endangering her own fool neck. Above her stood two of his nephews, arms crossed, blocking anyone else from descending. He flashed her a victorious smile, then turned back to the termite trying to make his escape.
Freed from Pascoe’s grip, a bloodied, limping Darrow continued his perilous flight toward the bottom. No longer feeling murderous, Pascoe gestured at the bottom of the hill and shouted back to Will and Theo. “Can you cut him off down there?”
“Fin has men on their way down,” Theo shouted back. “They’ve herded sheep and goats on those ruts all their lives. Get yourself back up here before Bridey kills herself trying to reach you.”
Feeling a bit foolish for losing his temper when Bridey was unharmed, Pascoe started the climb back up. When her look of relief turned to one of horror, he swung around, prepared to shove Darrow off the mountain if necessary.
It wasn’t necessary. Darrow had loosened a small cascade of stones in his haste to escape. He slipped and slid now in the tumble, grasping for a root or boulder to stop his fall—without success.
The mob screamed as the king’s godson pitched head over heels off a steep edge, disappearing into the scrub below.
Subdued after all the energy and emotion expended these last few hours, Bridey allowed Pascoe to haul her gracelessly across his lap and hold her as they rode back to the manor. Lord Theo and the others were leading a search party to find the earl’s brother, or whatever remained of him. She wanted to berate Pascoe for taking his fury out on a lesser opponent instead of just hauling Darrow off to prison, but she understood helpless rage too well. Had she the opportunity, she would no doubt have done the same.
Instead, she tried to store the memory of Pascoe’s muscled arms, broad shoulders, and hard chest holding her securely, his heart beating beneath her ear as they rode, surrounded by the people she’d grown up with.
They’d come to rescue her, not burn her as a witch. Tears crept down her cheeks at that realization, and because she knew Pascoe’s task here was nearly done. He would be returning to his home in London with the children. Her task had not yet begun.
That the entire village had come to her rescue reinforced what she had always known she must do. Women in this vast north country were strong. They needed what she could teach them, and their husbands and children would fare better for their knowledge. She couldn’t leave.
She had a hard time not sobbing into Pascoe’s filthy coat as the people who had called her witch shouted their encouragement and pride all the way up the hill. She could no longer freeze them out of her heart. They were small-minded and superstitious, perhaps, but they were the people her grandfather had taught her to help. And maybe her help would open their minds, just a little.
“Was that Lord Erran I heard speaking to the mob?” she asked to distract her thoughts.
“Theo said he rode down to find out what was happening.” Pascoe held her tighter. “I didn’t see him, but it’s good to know he can quiet a mob instead of just inciting one. Like the blamed lawyer he is, I think he went back to the manor and left the clean-up to us.”
