RUMBLING THUNDER DRAGGED Cerynise upward from a sound sleep, and even as she struggled to full awareness, lightning flickered beyond the bedroom windows, illuminating the interior and filling her with a deep-seated apprehension. In that brief, jagged streak of light, she caught sight of the clouds that were hovering threateningly over the house. They were as dark and ominous as the blackness that still held back the dawn. In another flash she noticed the larger branches of the live oak located just beyond the house swirling chaotically in the forceful winds that were sweeping inland. In spite of the years that had passed since her parents’ deaths, Cerynise hadn’t yet been able to conquer her fear of storms. Seeking comfort and reassurance in her husband’s presence, she reached across to the pillow beside her own. Alas, she found only an indentation where his head had been.
“Beau?”
“In here,” he answered from the dressing room.
Cerynise rolled onto her back and noticed a soft light streaming from the doorway of that area. “It’s still dark outside,” she announced sleepily. “Why are you up so early?”
“I promised Mr. Oaks that I’d be at the ship just after daybreak so we can secure the Audacious. If you haven’t noticed it yet, madam, there’s a storm heading our way.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed all right.” Worriedly Cerynise glanced beyond the windows again and cringed as another stroke of lightning swept across the dark shroud. “Is it going to be that bad?”
“Too soon to tell right now,” he replied, leaving the dressing room. He came to the bed and leaned across to give her a long, loving kiss. When he pulled away slightly, his eyes reflected the light as he smiled down at her. “Good morning, my pet.”
With a soft purr she looped her arms behind his neck and drew him down to her again. The fact that he was naked was an open invitation for her to run a hand admiringly over the muscular contour of his back. “I was just dreaming about you,” she whispered beneath the kisses that lightly caressed her lips. “We were playing together again in the study, and you were doing all sorts of wonderful things.”
Bracing up on an elbow, Beau grinned down at her as he searched her face in the meager light. “I thought I was the only one who had dreams like that.”
“Oh no, sir.” She moved her hands downward over the steely hardness of his buttocks. “In fact, if you have time, we could create more memories to recall.”
As much as he yearned to fulfill her request, Beau had to decline. He did so with a muted groan of disappointment. “Your invitation is enough to make me want to forget about going to the ship at all, but Mr. Oaks will be expecting me.” He pushed himself to his feet again. “I’ll be sending most of the staff to Harthaven as soon as they do a few things around here just in case the storm becomes severe. I’d like for you to go with them when they leave.”
“Without you?”
“I may not be back until about five or so this afternoon, and there’s no telling what the storm will be doing by then.”
“Oh, Beau, I couldn’t bear not knowing if you’re safe or not,” his wife argued. “I’d like to wait for you.”
“I’d feel a lot easier about the situation if you went out with the first vanguard of servants,” he said, hoping to convince her. “Jasper and the rest of the men will be going out later, after they finish securing the house, but I really think that you and Marcus should go out as soon as possible.”
“But I want to wait here at least until Jasper leaves,” Cerynise stated stubbornly. “That’s the earliest I will go unless you’re here to take us.”
Beau heaved a sigh. He had been afraid she’d say that. “I’ll return as soon as I can, my love,” he assured her, slipping into his underwear. “If the weather begins to look bad and I’m still not back, Jasper has strict orders to take you and Marcus to the plantation. I will brook no refusal from you then, madam. After Thomas takes me to the ship, he’ll be returning here to await your departure.”
“But how will you get back?”
“I’ll have my rain gear from the Audacious by then, so I can walk home. Once here, I can hitch up the chaise and drive out to the plantation.”
“But, Beau…”
He lifted a hand, halting her protests. “I insist that you leave before the winds get too strong, madam. I don’t want to have to worry about you more than I do already.” He fastened his trousers and cinched his belt. “I’ll leave for Harthaven myself before the storm becomes too severe.”
“Please don’t wait too long,” she begged.
He answered her through the light-knit sweater he was pulling over his head. “I won’t, my love.” Settling the garment in place, he blew her a kiss and stepped to the door. “I’m going down to grab something to eat and instruct the servants on what I want done in my absence. You might as well go back to sleep if you can. There’s no sense in you getting up so early.”
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” she called as he closed the door behind him.
“I promise.”
Cerynise lay still, listening to the sound of his booted heels beating a rapid staccato down the curving length of stairs. Even when she could hear his approach or departure, his footfalls clearly conveyed the energy and vitality of the man.
Cerynise dallied in bed for a while longer, and then addressed herself to a morning grooming. She fed and bathed Marcus and finally went downstairs. By then, most of the wooden shutters had been closed over the windows, and with the heavy clouds looming close overhead, the interior was as gloomy as if nightfall had descended. Lamps had been lit, and it was by their light that she carried Marcus around to view the progress that had been made.
“You’re going to experience your first real blow, young man,” she cooed to the baby. “Yet I think you’re just the sort to enjoy it. A bit like your papa, you are.”
As if in full agreement with her statement, her son gurgled at her charmingly, lifting his fine eyebrows and pursing his lips. His mother could do nothing less than nuzzle him and bestow a motherly kiss upon his soft cheek.
Jasper had addressed himself to the matter of preserving the furnishings in case the house suffered extensive damage during their absence. He was both instructing and assisting the male servants in that ambitious endeavor. Since there was no guarantee that the exterior shutters could withstand a destructive gale or that a limb wouldn’t snap and crash through a window, the precious Oriental rugs were rolled up and placed against the walls of the hallway upstairs. Treasured bric-a-brac also went into temporary storage on shelves in linen closets located on both levels in the middle of the house. The crystal chandeliers were carefully wrapped with sheets to assure that no prism would plummet to the floor should strong winds sweep inward through broken windows. Outside, the wrought iron furniture was taken from the garden and stored in the carriage house. Soon after his return from the docks, Thomas started his own project, making the conveyance as watertight as possible for the baby’s sake. During all of this, Philippe cooked and packed up baskets of food, a few for those who’d be leaving earlier but mainly for the ones who would be staying until later on in the afternoon. In all, it was a tedious, time-consuming process, and midday had already passed when the first group of servants left the manor.
Only a few moments before the appointed time that he and the mate were to meet and begin battening down the hatches and readying the ship for the storm, Beau sprinted aboard the Audacious beneath the covering of a small tarp, which he held over himself. Stephen Oaks was living in the first mate’s quarters aboard ship, and in recent days had been charting a course for the Caribbean islands, where, during the winter months, he would be sailing. While there, he’d be selling much needed goods to the merchants and collecting new cargo for the return trip. At the moment, however, there was no indication to assure Beau that the mate was moving about or, for that matter, even up.
The rain was increasing, laying a heavy haze over the city, and Beau immediately went down to the captain’s cabin to fetch his rain gear. It was so dark beyond the stern windows that a lamp had to be lit and placed on the floor directly in front of the locker so he could see into it. While searching for the necessary items, he noticed a large white bundle that had been shoved all the way to the back of the cabinet. Bemused, he pulled it forth and shook it out. The main item he realized was a sheet from his own bunk. It was spotted with old stains, very much like dried blood. The second article was a woman’s lace-trimmed nightgown, which he recognized as one that had once been his favorite among those belonging to his wife. He hadn’t seen it since well before their return to Charleston and, on occasion, had wondered what had happened to it. The back of the gown also bore similar stains, but there were others of a yellowish hue that had become stiff with age.
It didn’t take Beau more than a second to realize what he was staring at, and yet he was staggered by the evidence he had found. Here was solid proof that he had taken his wife’s virginity while he was out of his head with fever, and yet she had been so caught up with the idea of not tying him down against his will that she had refused to present it to him. If not for the fact that he had had his own entangled memories of that deed, she would have taken herself…and their baby…out of his life forever, just for the sake of honor.
Beau’s vision blurred with a light filming of tears as he thought of what that occurrence would have done to him. Except for the fear that someone, whether Alistair Winthrop, Howard Rudd or another villain, would harm or even kill her, he felt so completely blessed and favored by her presence in his life that he could only imagine the torment and anguish he would have suffered had they not resolved the matter of their marriage and her pregnancy.
He glanced toward his bunk, the place where he had stripped away her virginity. How he must have hurt her in his fevered delirium, he mused, and yet…how could he be sorry for having done the deed when Marcus was now the pride of his life and Cerynise his truest love? Suddenly his heart bubbled over with joy, and he felt a burning desire to return to them with all possible haste.
Slipping into his rain gear, he hurried down the hall to Mr. Oaks’s quarters and beat a fist upon the portal. “Eh, my mate, are you alive in there?”
“Ah…Aye, Captain, I think so,” came a groggy voice from within. “I must have worked too long into the morning and overslept.”
“Well, get yourself up. Bridget is going out to Harthaven, and she fully expects you to join her out there as soon as we’re done here. From the looks of things, we’ll be busy until nightfall unless you hurry yourself along.”
“I’m moving! I’m moving!” Stephen called back with more eagerness.
Cerynise made a concerted effort to keep her mind occupied. She had sent Vera to Harthaven with assurances that she would follow with the baby as soon as the captain returned. She nursed Marcus, talked to him about all sorts of things and, when he slept, tried without much success to read. As the afternoon waned, the fierce winds began to howl around the house. Listening to the eerie sounds heightened her trepidation, and she had to remind herself again and again that Beau would be home soon and that even with the fury that was being unleashed, she was secure. The walls around her were strong and sturdy. Yet, in spite of her efforts, she found little comfort. Only when she could feel her husband’s arms around her again would she be content.
Concern for Beau began to weigh her spirit down, and she paced about restlessly, looking at the clock many times in the passage of a moment. It didn’t matter how strong, capable or experienced her husband was, she still feared for his safety and wanted him close at hand. She needed him there to soothe and comfort her. He was so gentle and adept at doing so, just as he had always been and probably always would be.
Jasper came into the study to urge her to think about leaving pretty soon, and as much as she dreaded going without Beau, Cerynise realized that she couldn’t refuse his plea and perchance be the cause of some harm coming to her son or to the men. She didn’t want to countenance any responsibility in that area, for she knew the servants would feel obligated to stay with her if she refused to leave. The vivid reminder of the tree that had fallen and killed her parents during a storm gave her enough cause to acquiesce to the butler’s suggestion. Even so, it was with a heavy heart that she climbed the stairs and went to fetch her son and the satchel that she had prepared for him.
Holding her son close, Cerynise lifted the bag with her free hand. The baby whimpered a little, and she paused to cradle him close to her. He fussed, nuzzling her breast as if he wanted to nurse. A few moments’ delay wouldn’t hinder their departure, she decided, and was just reaching up to unfasten her bodice when she heard the front door slam.
“Beau!” With a glad cry, she rushed from the nursery and crossed to the door of the master bedroom. Sweeping it open, she hurried to the landing and, from over the balustrade, searched the central hall for her husband, confident now that the fears and memories of her parents’ death, which she had been struggling to hold at bay all day, wouldn’t trouble her any longer now that Beau was home.
The relief that had momentarily filled her vanished abruptly when she glimpsed, not her husband, but Alistair Winthrop and Howard Rudd moving around in the front foyer. Worse yet, Jasper, who had apparently gone to answer the door, was sprawled unconscious on the floor near the central hall. It looked as if he had been dragged back from the entrance, and at the moment Alistair was smirking as he slowly squeezed the trigger of the pistol he was pointing at the butler’s head. With a gasp Rudd bolted forward and knocked the gun aside.
“Are you so bent on killing that you can’t even realize that by shooting Jasper you’ll alert everyone in the house?” the solicitor hissed in a rage. “We’ll lock him in the kitchen pantry. If he comes around, he won’t be able to get out.”
“How many servants do you think are here with the girl?”
“Can’t be more than one in the house besides the girl with the chef gone and that old tar and the driver tied up and gagged in the carriage house. With everyone scurrying around all day, I lost track. Have to take care of Cooper once we let him out of the privy. He’ll set up a row when he realizes we wedged that timber against the door and he can’t get out. How many did you count off?”
“About the same.” Alistair sounded more than a little smug as he continued. “’Twas convenient of the neighbors to vacate their house so we could watch the captain’s house from their bedroom upstairs. Still, I’d have preferred waiting until dark before venturing over here. Someone could’ve seen us come over and gone to warn the captain.” The man rubbed a hand over the natural concavity between his bony hipbones. “I’m still tender from that hernia he gave me a week ago. The bastard nearly tore me insides apart.”
“Couldn’t wait. The servants were getting ready to leave with the girl,” the solicitor argued none too patiently. “Besides, the longer we delayed, the more likely our chances of being caught by the captain. He’ll likely kill us if he finds us here again, so I’d rather get this damn fool thing over with as soon as possible. So far, a third of your aunt’s fortune has served as an excellent incentive, but if I’m dead, the whole of it wouldn’t do me a bit of good.”
“Too bad I can’t gut the captain like I did that Wilson fellow,” Alistair muttered sourly.
Upstairs, Cerynise bit into a knuckle to keep from moaning aloud. She had known the two men were evil, but she hadn’t actually counted on them actually being capable of murder.
“That was a necessity,” Rudd rejoined acidly. “If Wilson had killed the girl, then there wouldn’t have been much for us to take back to England. The captain’s death would only be a passing pleasure, but if we don’t hurry, it may become a requirement, hopefully one we’ll be able to perform with our skins still attached. There’s no doubt about it. Abducting the girl will be a lot easier without having to confront that damned Yankee.”
“Could’ve blown me away by sheer surprise when he went off to his ship this morning. Sure saved us a lot of worry trying to figure out how we’d slice his throat on the sly so we could seize the girl. It seems the brave and mighty captain is just as nervous about a little storm as the rest of the people living in this area. Frankly, I don’t know why everyone is in such an uproar. If you want my opinion, they’re a bunch of spineless cowards.”
“Maybe they know something we don’t,” Rudd reasoned in a terse whisper. “But no matter. We’ll hide out in the country just like the rest of them until our ship sets sail. That ol’ tumbledown shack gives us a good view of the road, and so far, we’ve had plenty of time to skedaddle under the bridge whenever we’ve seen the sheriff coming. After we gave our clothes and a couple of coins to those two vagrants and told them to wander along the wharves and onto that ship bound for England, we haven’t been bothered much. Perhaps our ploy actually worked to distract everyone. In any case, I don’t expect there’ll be too much chance of the sheriff finding us after we take the girl. He’ll likely think it was someone else’s doing. Carting her aboard the ship in a trunk will be easy enough once we render her unconscious.”
“We’re being put to a lot of bother to keep her alive.” Alistair sighed heavily, deploring the trouble to which they were being put. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to break her beautiful little neck right here and now. Perhaps Wilson had the right idea.”
“Wasn’t his idea, remember?” Rudd retorted impatiently. “Or are you forgetting what we overheard in our room that night? But that’s neither here nor there. It’s ridiculous to think of killing the girl before we’re able to claim your aunt’s wealth, so don’t start getting any ideas in your head about how easy it would be to put her out of her misery. If you kill her now, nobody would be able to confirm her identity by the time we got her corpse back to England. Besides, we wouldn’t be able to hide the stench overlong in the close quarters of a ship. The captain of the vessel would surely become suspicious and come searching.”
“You know, Rudd, you’ve become quite accomplished in the field of murder since we’ve been together. Nowadays you no longer cringe when we talk about killing people.”
“Aye,” the barrister agreed derisively. “You’ve taught me well. I just hope I don’t hang for it.”
“Cheer up,” Alistair implored with a soft chortle. “Once we snatch the girl, we’ll be sailing home to a fortune. Then we can do away with her and have pleasure doing it.”
Cerynise’s skin crawled as they casually talked of her death. Slowly, carefully, she backed away from the balustrade, hoping Marcus wouldn’t make a fuss. Somehow she’d have to free Cooper before he arrived at the same fate as the other three servants. But the longer she thought about that idea, rational reasoning seemed to argue against her risking exposure to let the servant out of the privy. It was she whom the two wanted, not Cooper, and if they saw her with him, they’d then have no further reason to be wary of gunshots. They might even kill him. Better for all their sakes if she remained hidden with her baby.
Cerynise fled into her bedroom just as another bolt of lightning rent the sky and cast strange elongated streaks of light into the house through the slats of the shutters. She was caught in a nightmare, virtually alone except for a helpless baby, at the mercy of a storm and the demons that were intent upon destroying her and everyone she held dear. Somehow she had to do something to win the day for all concerned.
She acted on pure instinct, with her free hand turning down the wick in the lamp until the bedchamber was plunged into total darkness. Only the lightning provided her glimpses of the interior. Without pause, she hefted the baby’s satchel, dashed into the dark nursery and closed the door behind her as quietly as possible. She didn’t pause but with thumping heart eased open the door leading into the central hall. The corridor ran the full length of the house and, about midway, passed the balustrade and the two short corridors encircling it, one of which led to the landing near the door of the master bedroom.
A pair of wall sconces had been lit at each end of the main hall, and after setting down the valise, Cerynise crept stealthily down the hall in both directions to snuff the lights. Retracing her steps, she picked up the satchel and slipped into the little cubicle that served as a connecting hallway between two adjoining bedrooms on the south side.
Blessing the knowledge she had of the house, Cerynise carefully opened the door of the large walk-in linen closet located against the back wall of that short passageway. Carefully she slipped the key from the latch, stepped within, closed the door behind her and quietly locked it. Alone with her baby in the darkness of the interior, she dragged several sheets off a shelf and made a bed of sorts on the floor for her son. Then she sat down beside it, realizing only then that her legs were shaking beneath her. For a panic-filled moment, the mere awareness of her fear threatened to collapse her self-control, but she pressed trembling fingers to her lips, resolving to overcome her trepidations by her own will and fortitude.
Marcus started fussing, and Cerynise immediately put him to her breast. Nursing him gave her time to put her thoughts into clear perspective, and she began to form a plan to thwart the villains’ intentions, based upon the hope that Marcus would fall asleep soon after his feeding. Her husband might be arriving home anytime now, and those men would kill him if they could. For once, it was up to her to save him, and she prayed that she could do half as well as he had in the past whenever he had come to her rescue.
It was not long before Cerynise became aware of Alistair and Rudd wandering through the rooms upstairs. She could hear their cautious footsteps and, beneath the door of the closet, could see a thread of light from the hurricane lamps they carried. She held her breath when one of them paused near the closet door and mentally offered a prayer of thanksgiving when they moved on without testing the knob. After exploring the two bedrooms on either side of the closet, they finally went downstairs again to continue their search there.
When Marcus had finished feeding, Cerynise laid him over her shoulder and patted his tiny back until a soft burp came from him. Taking every precaution she could to make sure he wouldn’t wake because of some discomfort, she changed his diaper, immensely thankful that in the dark closet she didn’t have to worry about anything more than it being wet. Slowly she rocked him until he fell asleep. Dropping a loving kiss upon his silken head, she held him for a moment more, dearly hoping that it wouldn’t be for the last time. She laid him upon the makeshift bed, covered him with a blanket and left her cubbyhole, taking care to lock it behind her. It was most convenient that her gown had deep, concealed pockets into which she could deposit the key. Not only did the key open all the linen closets in the house, but it also unlatched the pantry door, where the two villains had talked about hiding Jasper.
Cerynise entered her bedroom once again, removed the pistol from the drawer of Beau’s bedside table, and slipped it into her right pocket. There was no need for her to check the loading. Since the appearance of the dog, her husband had gotten into the habit of examining the pistol almost nightly before turning out the light.
“Where’s the bitch gone to?” Alistair muttered from the lower level as Cerynise crept cautiously from her bedroom. “She’s not down here, and she doesn’t appear to be upstairs. Her baby is gone. Do you suppose she could have left?”
“In this rain?” Rudd scoffed. “She wouldn’t take a baby out in this weather unless it was by carriage, and that’s still here. No, she’s in this house all right, probably hiding from us.”
Although many of the lower rooms were still lit, both men were holding lamps to aid in their hunt for her. They approached the stairs, and silently she flitted past the balustrade to the main hallway. Slipping into the bedroom that Beau’s parents preferred to use when they came, she pushed the door almost closed behind her, leaving a slit wide enough to allow her to watch the entrance of the narrow cubicle behind which she had hidden her son.
Hardly breathing, Cerynise peered through the crack as the pair of miscreants reached the upper level. They went down the hall toward the nursery and then, to her horror, Alistair turned in the opposite direction, entered the corridor between the two bedrooms and rattled the doorknob of the closet.
“This door is locked,” he hissed, tossing a glance toward Rudd.
“Perhaps she’s in there,” the lawyer suggested, joining him.
Immediately Cerynise flung open the door behind which she had been hiding, letting it slam against the wall to gain their attention as she raced around the nearest side of the balustrade. She amazed herself by her own swift descent and sprinted into the kitchen. Hearing the rapidly drumming footfalls of her adversaries following in pursuit, she unlocked the pantry door and yanked it open, hoping to find Jasper conscious and fully alert. The lanterns in the kitchen illumined the interior of the pantry clearly, and she almost groaned in despair, for there was now not only the butler lying crumpled in the narrow space, but Cooper as well. Both men were unconscious and of no help to her.
Gingerly she closed the pantry door, afraid of making a sound, and then darkened the room. For barely an instant a stroke of lightning lit the kitchen with narrow slices of light cast through the shutters. As she paused near the dining room door, she caught the sound of footsteps advancing through the room. Stealthily she tiptoed to the far end of the kitchen and slipped past the swinging door into the hall. She flitted down its length, turning down the wicks in the wall sconces as she went until the corridor was nothing more than a dark tunnel. Upon reaching the main hall, she heard the men’s voices drifting down from the kitchen.
“She’s been here, all right,” Alistair announced in an angry tone. “The lamps are out now when they weren’t a moment ago. I bet the bitch went outside to the carriage house.”
“I didn’t hear the back door being opened, and the way the hinges squeak, I’m sure I would have noticed it,” Rudd assured him. Then he thrust out an arm. “Look over there! There’s another door! Come on!”
Cerynise dashed from the hallway and, once again, ascended to the second story. Even as she reached the long table standing against the wall near her bedroom door, she heard Rudd urging his companion.
“Got to hurry. The captain could return any second.”
“Where the devil has she gone now?”
“Upstairs, I think. She’s leading us on a wild-goose chase, and this time I think the goose is winning.”
“She’s only a woman,” Alistair sneered, sprinting ahead of the lawyer. Reaching the stairs, he flung a question over his shoulder, “What can she do against the two of us?”
Rudd heard a sound directly above them and lifted his head in time to see a massive vase stuffed with fall flowers plummeting toward his confederate. “Look out!”
It was Alistair’s folly that he had to see what was coming. He glanced up when the heavy urn was only a short distance above his head and tried to jerk aside, but he wasn’t nimble enough. He felt the weighty porcelain painfully grazing his scalp. The bottom of one of the delicately decorated handles broke just as it hit the top of his head. In the next instant Alistair let out a fierce roar of pain as the upper portion of the broken handle gouged his scalp and, upon passing his ear, promptly sliced it off. A second later the vessel shattered on the stairs, sending shards of broken glass flying like needles into their legs.
“The bitch! I’ll kill her!” Alistair cried at the top of his lungs, clasping a hand over the bloody stub of his ear. “She maimed me!”
After prying a piece of porcelain from his own calf, Rudd picked up the severed piece of flesh and solicitously passed it to his partner-in-crime. “Maybe you can have your ear sewn back on.”
“So it can rot?” A snarl came from Alistair as he rejected the notion. “So help me, when I catch the bitch, I’ll rip hers off with a saw!” he threatened, his voice fraught with pain. The jagged piece of glass sticking into his shin came out with a small spurt of blood. It trickled down his leg, but he hardly felt it with the agony he was suffering otherwise.
“If we catch her,” Rudd offered, beginning to doubt that they were the crafty ones in this cat-and-mouse game. In fact, the girl had seemed pretty confident of her aim when she had peered down over the railing. He was sure he had glimpsed an expression of gleeful anticipation on her beautiful face.
Compresses were applied to the ragged nubbin that remained of Alistair’s ear. Then his head was swathed in a towel to hold them in place. In dire distress now, he had lost the verve for adventure in this chase which he had heretofore been enjoying. He was out to seize the wench, and with every word he muttered he made it clear that from the moment they caught her, her life would be a hellish, torturous torment until the day she died.
The two wandered through the upper rooms, looking into every nook and cranny. It seemed weird but in the midst of their lofty search, they heard a siren’s faint, melodic call from the lower depths. After creeping downstairs, they stepped cautiously to the marble floor, trying to avoid the larger pieces of broken glass that threatened to pierce the soles of their shoes. Even so, Rudd had to pause and set his lantern down to pick out one such splinter.
The lamps in all of the rooms had now been snuffed, and though the two men peered into the surrounding darkness, seemingly from out of nowhere a white specter soared toward them, emitting a shriek that was definitely of a female origin. Warbling screams of fright erupted from the two men, and in goggle-eyed fear they retreated from the winged demon that flew at them from the darkness, stumbling over their own feet in their haste to scurry out of its way.
Having forayed through the kitchen while the men were searching upstairs, Cerynise had come away with a spool of stout twine, a heavy iron kettle and a large bag of flour with which to weight it. It had met her mood to drape a sheet over the kettle to make it appear ghostly. The twine she had cut to a length longer than she was tall. One end she fastened to the handle of the pot and the other end to one of the spindles of the balustrade. After wrapping another length of twine around the kettle, or rather the belly of her spook, she had clasped the opposite end and then retreated as far as she could go back into the shadows beneath the stairs. There she had waited, much like a spider for a fly, until her victims ventured into her trap.
This time it was Rudd who caught the brunt of Cerynise’s attack. Her contraption nearly lifted him off his feet when it slammed into him. It certainly served to spill him backward to the floor where the glass had been liberally distributed. There he lay as if frozen, staring upward in a stunned daze while the ghostly pendulum swung tauntingly to and fro above him.
“Are you alive?” Alistair queried, seriously doubting the fact, for the lawyer was staring up the ceiling fixedly and really didn’t appear to be breathing. Perhaps all these years his companion had been suffering from some unknown malady that, at the moment of impact or at sight of the ghostly apparition, had stripped away his life. He thumped a fist rather harshly into the rounded chest, trying to provoke some response, and with a loud wheezing intake, Rudd sucked air into his lungs once again.
“What hit me?” Rudd gasped, thankful he could breathe again.
“A ghost,” Alistair retorted satirically. “Of Cerynise’s making.”
Rudd swallowed and tried to move, then, gingerly feeling the back of his head, realized there was now a huge knot where his noggin had bounced on the marble floor. That was not all. He could feel something sharp piercing both his shoulder and backside. Rolling over, he allowed Alistair the honors of prying the pieces of shattered porcelain out of his flesh.
“It was unwise of you to ever throw Cerynise out of your aunt’s house,” the solicitor reminisced morosely, as if he had just had an afterlife experience in the nether depths. “I don’t think she has ever forgiven us.”
“I’ve got a lot more to forgive her for,” Alistair growled, peering into the shadows beneath the stairs. Holding his glass lamp aloft, well above his right shoulder, he crept forward cautiously, certain that he had seen some movement in the darkness beyond its glow. “Are you hiding back there, Cerynise?”
The bronze bookend was like a bat flying out of hell. It crashed into the lamp, breaking the glass and spilling oil down the whole side of him. It quickly erupted in flames. Alistair shrieked in sudden anguish and terror as the fire rapidly fed into his clothing and began to sear his flesh. In a panic he whirled and raced past the stairs, frantically snatching at the burning bandages on his head. Rudd was just struggling to rise, but gasped in horror and ducked out of the way as the human firebrand leapt over him. In another moment the front door was jerked open, and Alistair went screaming into the torrential downpour beyond the porch. Rudd staggered to his feet and, holding one hand to the back of his head and the other against his bleeding rump, limped to the front door where, far beyond the porch, his partner-in-crime was presently getting thoroughly drenched.
“I think we should leave before she kills us,” Rudd called out to the suffering man above the roar of the storm. “I’m not sure we should rile her any more than she is.”
“I’ll rile her!” Alistair blared from the front lawn. “I’ll impale her on a pike and let her carcass rot in the sun!”
“What sun?”
Alistair sought to gnash his teeth at his cohort, but the pain evoked when he tried to draw his lips back made him immediately regret his effort. “Never mind, you dunderhead! Just help me get back into the house. I’m drowning out here.”
“Well, at least you’re no longer burning,” Rudd reasoned mutedly. He hobbled down the front steps and solicitously served as a human crutch to the half-seared man. By the time the two got back inside, their clothes were soaked and pools of water collected around their sodden shoes and spread in ever-widening circles. Walking on the marble floor proved hazardous. They went slipping and sliding with arms flailing wildly in a concerted effort to balance themselves. Though Alistair’s wobbly legs threatened to collapse beneath him before he ever got there, Alistair reached the nearest bench and lowered his skinny rear onto the seat. Rudd clumsily skated over to the table where he had left his lamp and brought the light back to inspect the other’s burns. It was worse than he had first imagined, for the whole right side of Alistair’s face had been cooked. Raw flesh oozed beneath thickly curling, blackened crisps that, a few moments ago, might have been an outer layer of skin. Rudd seriously doubted that his partner would have to shave that particular side of his face ever again.
Grimacing at the sight, Rudd drew a handkerchief from his coat pocket, squeezed the water out of it, and solicitously tried to wipe away the charred peelings, succeeding only in extracting a fierce yowl of pain.
“My face is burnt, dammit!” Alistair railed in torment. “That’s what the little twit did to me, besides burning half my body!”
“At least your ear is no longer bleeding,” the lawyer counseled, curling his lip in repugnance as he inspected the charred glob. When he looked at his companion in profile from the right angle, it was extremely difficult to determine if he was human.
Alistair choked in outrage. “I can’t even feel it anymore with all the torment I’m in!”
Rudd stepped back to survey the whole man and saw that, along Alistair’s right side, all that remained of his coat and shirt were blackened shreds adhering to his bony chest and arm, which were crisply burned. Most of the hair on his head and chest had been singed to the roots, and his eyebrows were completely gone. Just looking at him made the lawyer cringe.
“Are you sure you want to continue our efforts to catch the girl?”
“Go find something to dress my wounds!” Alistair muttered.
“The captain may come back any moment now,” Rudd reasoned.
Alistair snorted. “He’ll likely wait until the rain slackens.”
“It doesn’t appear likely that that will happen any time soon. I think we should leave while we still can.”
“No!” Alistair roared. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to kill that bitch, even if it’s with my dying breath.”
“It may well be,” the lawyer responded ruefully. “We’ve clearly been outwitted by her.”
“Never!”
“I’ll go see what I can find to tend your burns,” Rudd offered submissively. Wary of his feet flying out from under him, he made his way with painstaking care down the corridor, leaving a watery trail behind him. Once he entered the kitchen, he lifted the lamp high to light the path around the table and squished his way carefully toward the pantry. It was a common practice for salves and such to be kept in a kitchen, where most burns occurred, and he expected that his search of the closet would prove successful. But first, he’d have to make sure the two men were still unconscious and wouldn’t attack him once he opened the door. He didn’t know if they could do any more damage to him than the girl had, but he wasn’t willing to give them a chance.
He was just passing the dining room door when the rays cast from his lantern touched on something that made his nerves stand on end. With a startled gasp he glanced around, just in time to see Cerynise with an iron poker poised above her head. In the next instant the rod came swishing downward through the air. Rudd threw up an arm to protect himself, but too late. His cry of alarm dwindled to a mute groan as the poker struck his head. A fiery pain exploded in his brain, and he stumbled forward to his knees, still clasping the hurricane lamp in a desperate grip lest he, too, find himself set on fire by spilling oil. In a dazed stupor he grasped hold of the girl’s skirt. The rod was lifted once again and brought down, darkening his awareness to a pinpoint of light as he toppled aside. Then that, too, was snuffed as a third blow was delivered.
“Rudd!” Alistair called in a tone of panic from the front of the house.
Almost calmly, Cerynise placed the poker beside the solicitor’s still form and picked up the hurricane lamp that had settled rattlingly to the floor. Moving through the dining room at a leisured pace, she watched the radiance reach out beyond her, flowing through the doorway into the central hall.
Alistair heaved an audible sigh as he noticed the approaching light. “I thought something had happened to you. I heard you scream.” Silence continued unswervingly, and the scorched man struggled upward from the bench in intensifying alarm. “Rudd? Is that you, Rudd? Why don’t you answer me?”
“I’m afraid he can’t, Alistair,” Cerynise replied, moving like a wraith into the hall.
Alistair gasped and backed away. “What did you do to him?”
She smiled stiffly as she passed the stairs and set the lantern aside on a table. “Put him out of his misery, I would presume.”
“You mean…you…you killed him?”
Though Cerynise couldn’t tell much from his blistered face, his tone had certainly sounded incredulous. “Perhaps.”
“How could you…?” Alistair began, and then abruptly remembered what she had already done to them. Suddenly he was afraid, enough that the hairs on the back of his neck, at least the few that were left, stood on end. “Keep your distance, bitch! Stay where you are!”
Ignoring his ultimatum, she glided ever-nearer. “Why, Alistair, what could I possibly do to you that you haven’t already threatened to do to me?”
His eyes widened until she could see the whites, a sharp contrast indeed against his scorched skin. A warbling wail of fright burst forth from his singed lips. He wouldn’t put it past the wench to employ some of his own threats to do him in. “You’re a fiend!”
Her poise amazed Cerynise. She had never dreamt that she could remain unruffled in the face of danger. She had always been afraid that she’d panic in a dangerous situation and be utterly useless to herself and everyone around her. Silently she thanked heaven for her aplomb.
“Now really, Alistair, what right has a kettle to besmirch the pot and call it black?” The incongruous humor of her statement drew a chuckle from her as she peered into his blackened face. She slipped a hand into her pocket, taking hold of the butt of the pistol, and shrugged casually. “I shouldn’t make jests when you’re obviously in pain, should I, Alistair?” She shook her head sadly, and then, without pause, changed the subject. “So! Would you like to take Rudd’s advice now and give up the fight?”
“You slut!” the thin man bellowed. “What more could you do to me that you haven’t done already?”
“Put you out of your misery,” she offered.
Jerking forth a pistol from the left side of his coat, he smirked lopsidedly with a measure of triumph. “My turn, bitch!”
The hazel eyes reflected the light of the lantern as Cerynise flicked a glance toward his weapon. “Before you kill me, Alistair, would you mind telling me one thing? Why have you done this? Why did you journey all the way from England to create havoc in my life? Do you hate me so much?”
“Why?” The man scoffed at her lack of insight. “For money, of course. What else?”
“Money?” Cerynise’s brows gathered in confusion. “But Lydia left you everything. Wasn’t it enough?”
His laughter was short-lived and chilling. But then, he had always seemed more demon than man to her.
“You stupid, senseless twit!” he choked and then shuddered at the pain enveloping him. “Lydia left me nothing! She couldn’t see anyone but you after you came to live with her. You turned her affections against me. She wrote a new will, leaving you everything. She couldn’t even spare me a farthing.”
His answer was almost more than Cerynise could comprehend. “But I saw the will,” she reasoned. “You showed it to me. It declared you as her sole heir.”
“That was the old will, one which Rudd had drafted long before you became Lydia’s ward. She went behind our backs, she did, and made a new one on the sly. But I wasn’t cognizant of that fact, and I became desperate, you see. My creditors were harping at me day and night, threatening to imprison me. I held them off as long as possible, hoping Lydia would do me a favor and die, but the strain was too much, and I wanted to live.” He shrugged one shoulder lamely. “Her last night on earth…I visited her and put hemlock in that foul-tasting tonic she always sipped in the evening.”
Cerynise gasped. “You mean you…she didn’t…?”
“No, she didn’t die of natural causes,” Alistair finished for her with a one-sided sneer. “I was tired of having to argue and beg for every farthing she threw me, so I took matters into my own hands and”—he chortled crazily—“put the old hag out of her misery. I doubt that she even knew what I had done. Certainly that stupid doctor of hers didn’t.”
“Oh, Alistair, how could you?” Cerynise moaned.
“Actually, it was all very easy,” he replied smugly. “All I had to do was think how rich I would be once Lydia passed on. I thought everything would be wonderful then, until I found out what the old hag had done.”
Cerynise’s mind reeled. No wonder he had been in such a hurry to get her out of Lydia’s house…at least until he realized there was a new will. “That’s why you came to fetch me from the Audacious.” She was just beginning to understand the reasoning behind his attempts to take her captive. “By that time, you had discovered the truth and had plans to kill me as soon as it became convenient.”
Alistair tried to nod, but the agony that the movement caused made him tremble uncontrollably. Another moment passed before he could continue. “I wanted to kill you. It would have been nice and tidy before you married the captain. Without a legal heir to your name, all of Lydia’s wealth would have come to me.” He wheezed in pain. “When your husband waved those marriage papers in front of me, I thought all was lost. But I didn’t give up, not me. I came after you. We were intending to take you back to England, ensconce you in Lydia’s house and then, after assuming legal guardianship over you, render you feeble and incapable of communication with strong potions. Of course, we’d have forced you to sign a will which would have left me everything in the event of your death. Oh, we’d have allowed you to have visitors for a while, some of Lydia’s friends who knew you.…We’d have even appointed a nurse to care for you so no one would have suspected that we were feeding you slowacting poison. Then we’d have buried you.”
“Don’t you think my husband would have come after me?”
“Oh, we were willing to pay for his death, someone who’d have made it look like an accident before the bloody bastard set foot on English soil. People wouldn’t have grieved his passing overmuch.”
“You planned it all,” Cerynise mused aloud. “Yet, except for Lydia’s death, none of it will ever come to pass now.”
Alistair had already come to that conclusion himself, but he was not above smirking at the power he held over her now. “At least you’ll be dead.”
“Did Rudd help you kill Lydia?” she queried, realizing there might have been a viable reason for her not trusting the solicitor.
“He didn’t know anything about that. In fact, he only became an accessory after I killed another. As yet, he isn’t aware that I poisoned Lydia, but he had no choice but to help me when I offered him a third of the inheritance. You see, he needed the money as desperately as I did. He’s quite partial to his brandy and other things that cost money. Or perhaps he was once. Do you really think you killed him?”
“He won’t be helping you, if that’s what you mean.” Cerynise tilted her head curiously. “I heard you say that you had stabbed Wilson because he was trying to kill me. Was that really the reason?”
“A necessity, Rudd said,” Alistair admitted. “The tar was being paid to kill you to seek revenge on your husband.”
“You say he was being paid, yet Wilson might have thought that he had enough cause to retaliate on his own…without inducement.”
Alistair grimaced again at the pain he was suffering and staggered slightly before he could manage to bring himself in line. “It’s not unheard of for a man to kill for revenge, but in this case, he not only had an accomplice, but there was someone else who had funds enough to guarantee their enthusiasm for such a chore.”
“Do you know their names?”
“The man I heard advising Wilson to lay low for a time was Frank Lester. It seemed they both came out here one night to do you in. Frank was boasting about throwing you down the stairs at your husband.”
“But why would they have been so careless to talk where you could overhear?”
Alistair winced, wishing at the moment that he had a whole vat of brandy to drink. It would probably be the only thing that would ease his discomfort. “We had a room right next door to them at an inn, a shabby one at best, but the only one we could afford. We heard voices coming through a vent in the chimney in our room and paused to listen. Here I was, newly arrived in Charleston, and the first person I heard those two discussing was you. I thought for a moment my imagination was getting out of hand.”
“I’ve heard it said that Wilson was wary of strangers since there were so many people looking for him. How did you manage to get close enough to knife him?”
His blistered lips moved minutely, trying to form a sneer. “He had seen us getting off a ship from England, and when we asked him about an inn, he told us where he was staying. Of course, he was cautious of others seeing his face, so he kept to the shadows most of the time or hid out in his room. After we overheard him talking to Frank Lester, we approached him on the dock in the guise of needing more directions. By that time, he thought nothing of talking to us, since he knew we were Englishmen and had no dealings with the local inhabitants.”
“Are you planning on murdering me by some other devious means or do you intend to kill me with that?” Cerynise asked, indicating the pistol he was holding.
“I guess it really doesn’t matter now how I kill you. Considering my present condition and without Rudd to help me, taking you back to England seems rather farfetched. I can only hope that after killing you here, I’ll be able to collect on some of the inheritance before your husband sends investigators to England to search me out.”
Alistair winced and raised his weapon, aiming it toward her heart. “I can’t say that it’s been a pleasure knowing you.”
Cerynise had already cocked the pistol in her pocket for the sake of safety some time ago, but she couldn’t foresee having enough time to draw it forth from her skirt before she fired. Her finger tightened on the trigger, but in the next instant the front door was flung wide, and Beau swept in, clothed in rain gear. Alistair glanced around in sharp surprise and immediately swept his own weapon around and centered its bore on the other man’s chest.
“Nooo!” Cerynise shrieked, pulling back the firing mechanism in swift reaction. The recoil of the pistol knocked her backward, but in a quick, hazy glimpse she saw blood fly outward from Alistair’s chest as the lead shot burrowed deep. He seemed to convulse forward, and a wry smile twisted across his scorched lips as he peered up at Beau, who, surprised by it all, could only look death in the face as the man centered the weapon on his chest.
Cerynise screamed again, her heart all but stopping. It was a fleeting moment of terrifying, wrenching suspense as the hammer fell. A deafening explosion of sound was fully expected by all three, but there was only a dull, rasping click of metal.
Alistair stared down in amazement at the pistol. “Should’ve known,” he mumbled as the weapon toppled from his loosening fingers. “Got wet, it did.” He slumped to his knees and stared down at his rapidly reddening chest. Then he canted his head toward Cerynise, and his unruly lips curved awkwardly. “Should’ve taken Rudd’s advice and left before you kilt me.…You were always far luckier than I.…” He collapsed forward to the floor and, after a choked gasp, breathed his last.
Cerynise leapt across his still form and, despite her husband’s sodden gear, threw herself into his opening arms, sobbing harshly in relief as he clasped her hard against him. “Oh, Beau! I thought he was going to kill you! I didn’t know his gun wouldn’t fire!”
“Rest easy, madam,” her husband gently soothed. “His intent was to kill me, and he paid for it with his life.”
“He killed Wilson and Lydia…and others,” she gasped through her sobs. “He told me so.”
Beau drew back and searched her face. Noticing that her gown had become soaked by his rain gear, he began to shrug out of it. “Did he kill Wilson because he was afraid that the tar would talk?”
Cerynise shook her head, trying to wipe away her tears with the back of a hand. “No, not at all. As farfetched as it might seem, Alistair killed him because Wilson was trying to murder me. Wilson also had an accomplice…that man whom you talked to Germaine about the night of Suzanne’s engagement party…Frank Lester. He and Wilson were being paid to kill me for someone who wanted to exact revenge on you.”
“Germaine,” Beau muttered with sudden certainty. “She all but threatened us that night on the porch. I didn’t take it much to heart at the time, but I might have underestimated her.”
Cerynise glanced down at Alistair and shivered as she averted her face. “What are you going to do about her?”
“Leave her to the sheriff,” Beau answered without pause, laying his raincoat over the dead man. “I don’t ever want to see that bitch’s face again.”
He went back to close the front door and, taking Cerynise’s hand, pulled her with him as he stepped around the body and moved into the central hall. The house was dark except for a hurricane lamp burning on a table, and though he glanced around and peered into the shadows beyond the meager light, he saw no evidence of any of the servants. “But what happened to the men? Did Alistair kill them, too?”
“No, thank heavens,” Cerynise replied. “Moon and Thomas are presently locked up in the carriage house, and Jasper and Cooper are in the pantry.…”
“In the pantry?” Beau queried in surprise, taking up the lamp. “Did Alistair put them in there?”
“Aye. Rudd helped him do it, but the last time I looked, Jasper and Cooper were both unconscious.”
When they came to the remains of the vase and flowers scattered over the stairs and the marble floor, Beau paused, lifting the light higher. “But what happened here?”
Cerynise glanced around at the mess she had caused. “Well, I had to do something to thwart Alistair’s devious plans.”
Beau cocked his head as he awaited her answer. “What did you do exactly?”
She lifted her slender shoulders, only just now realizing how costly the container had been. Perhaps it, too, should have been put in the linen closet. “I dropped the vase down upon Alistair from above. It cut off his ear.”
Beau chuckled in rueful amusement. “Cut off his ear?”
“Alistair was quite perturbed about it. Threatened to sever mine with a saw.”
“Well, the way he looked when I came in, I thought he had already ventured into hell and somehow managed to come back,” her husband remarked, unable to squelch a grin. “What else did you do to him? Roast him over an open fire?”
“I’m afraid I threw a bookend at the lamp he was carrying. It broke and the oil spilled over him and he caught fire. He ran outside to douse the flames, but he wasn’t entirely the same when he came back. Neither was Rudd.”
Beau could only stare at his wife in amazement. He hadn’t known her capable of such tactics, but he was immensely relieved that she had had the grit and fortitude to prevent the culprits from doing their mischief and that she was now safe. “Where is Rudd?”
“He’s in the kitchen.” Cerynise bit her lip worriedly, fretting over what she had been forced to do. “I hope I didn’t kill him, but I had to make sure that he’d remain unconscious while I dealt with Alistair.”
Beau’s amazement was advancing by leaps and bounds. “What did you do to Rudd?”
“I hit him with a poker.”
“Good heavens, madam! Do you mean to say that you served those men their just due all by yourself?”
Cerynise shrugged her shoulders in a lame gesture of admittance. “I had to do something, Beau. I overheard them making plans to kill you if you came back early. They were going to take me back to England where eventually they were going to murder me so Alistair could gain the inheritance.…”
“But I thought he had already inherited everything…or was it true what he told you on his last visit?”
“He’s been lying all along, at least since the day he learned that Lydia had changed her will, leaving everything to me.” Cerynise leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder as they moved past the stairs. “It must have come as a terrible shock to him after he threw me out of Lydia’s house.”
“So that’s why he was so anxious to reclaim you as his ward.”
“He wanted me to expire before witnesses in England so he could claim Lydia’s fortune as her only living kin.”
Beau paused as he caught sight of something that looked very much like a wraith hovering in the shadows beneath the spiraling staircase. He peered intently at the thing, trying to make it out. “What in heaven’s name is that?”
“Oh, that’s my friendly ghost,” Cerynise announced, waving a hand toward it. “He helped me knock the wind out of Rudd.”
Her husband looked at her, truly flabbergasted at her inventiveness. “But what is it?”
“A large kettle with a bag of flour in it and a sheet covering it all,” she explained, rather proud of her creation. “I think Alistair and Rudd actually thought it was real for a moment. They screamed as if they thought the banshees of hell were coming after them.”
Beau chortled. “Oh, my dear, dear wife. To think that I missed it all!”
“Are we going to leave Alistair in the house while we travel to Harthaven?” she queried worriedly, reverting back to her real concern.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t think we’ll have to go now,” Beau replied. “The storm has changed course and is blowing out to sea. If it doesn’t revert back, we’ll be safe enough here.”
Cerynise heaved a deep sigh in relief. “I wasn’t looking forward to the long ride after what I’ve been through tonight. If not for the fact that I’m a nursing mother, I’d try some of that brandy of yours to calm myself.” In some amazement she thrust out her hands to show him how much she was trembling now that he had come home.
“What did you do with our son while all of this was going on?” Beau queried.
“I locked him in the linen closet upstairs.” She rose on tiptoes to bestow a kiss upon her husband’s lips, and then stepped away. “I’ll go and fetch him.”
“You’d better wait until I can light a lamp for you. The rest of the house is as black as a bats’ haven. I thought when I came home that you had already left because everything was so dark.”
“I doused the lanterns so I’d know where those two brigands were. They couldn’t get around the house without light, so it was easy for me to keep track of where they were.”
Beau lit an oil lamp and handed it to her. “I’m truly amazed at your resourcefulness, madam. I’m also very proud of you for defending your family so well.”
“Alistair and Rudd forced me into it.” Cerynise accepted his offering with another sigh. “I could have done nothing less.”
“Madam, from what you’ve told me, I can only imagine that you were superb. I’m just sorry I missed it all.”
“If you had been here, you’d have taken care of those two in short order.” She nodded as she came to a firm conclusion. “I think the next time you have to secure your ship before a storm, I’ll either go with you or take your son to Harthaven at the first mention of bad weather. I don’t believe I can stand another evening the likes of which I’ve just experienced.”
Beau placed a doting kiss upon the top of her head. “If it will ease your mind, my pet, I’ll make a point of staying close beside you whenever storms are approaching. Would you like that?”
“Oh, yes!” Cerynise smiled as she searched his face. “Then I can be assured you’re safe, too. The fact that my parents were killed during a storm makes me worry about your safety when you’re gone during bad weather.”
“Don’t fret yourself, madam,” Beau urged his young wife. “I’m just as anxious to come home to you.”
Cerynise released a long sigh of relief. “I know that, but I shall continue to pray and trust to the heavens to keep you safe for me and Marcus.”
Beau grinned and swept his hand toward the stairs. “Go get our son, madam. I haven’t seen him all day, and I’d like to bestow a little fatherly attention upon him.”
“Yes, sir.” She dipped her head in an eager nod and hurriedly picked a path through the broken glass on her way to the stairs.
When Cerynise unlocked the door of the linen closet upstairs, she found that her son had just begun to rouse from sleep. Gathering him close, she murmured loving words against his cheek. “Your papa is down below, my son, and he’s wanting to see you.”
Marcus blinked his eyes at the light she carried, as if he wasn’t at all sure he liked being disturbed by such brightness. Still, he stretched in the curve of her arm and yawned, drawing a smile from his mother.
The kitchen was ablaze with light by the time she entered. Jasper and Cooper were sitting at the table, groggily submitting themselves to their employer, who was in the process of wrapping bandages around their heads. Moon and Thomas, who had been tied up and left in the carriage house, were otherwise unharmed. As for Rudd, he was still living, but no determination could be made as to his condition or if he would actually revive.
Moon and the servants sat around the kitchen table, listening intently as Beau told them what his wife had done. All of the men were clearly astounded by Cerynise’s ingenuity and mettle to confront the two villains by herself. The fact that she had shot Alistair after he had tried to kill Beau was understandable in their minds, considering how much she adored her husband.
“It’s been a very traumatic day,” Cerynise declared, setting her mind to other matters. “And I’m hungry. Where is the food that Philippe packed for us before he left for Harthaven?”
Beau inclined his head toward a pair of baskets that had been left on a far worktable. “I think we could all use something to eat, my love.” He glanced around at the men to see if they were in agreement. “Is that right?”
“Ye can bet yer bloomers on that, Cap’n,” Moon rejoined jovially. “Me belly’s gnawin’ on me backbone, an’ if’n ye don’t mind, I’ll have a pinch o’ me own rum ta settle me hands.” The tar stretched forth the knobby extremities and exaggerated their trembling for their benefit. “I ain’t quite o’er that there Rudd fella thrustin’ a pistol in me face. He was shakin’ worse’n I was.”
“I noticed he had some difficulty with that when he held the pistol on me,” Beau rejoined with a chuckle. “I was more afraid of it going off by accident than I was of him pulling the trigger. And by all means, Moon, drink whatever you like. I’m sure you could use some strong libation after what you’ve gone through. In fact, men, feel free to indulge yourselves in something other than tea and coffee. My liquor cabinet is open in the parlor, so help yourselves.”
“I wish I had something to comfort me,” Cerynise sighed wistfully.
Her husband smiled at her above the houseman’s head as he tied off the bandage. “The suggestion you made this morning might serve such a purpose, madam. Perhaps you’ll have to try it later.”
Cerynise’s eyes glowed back at him and held a promise that readily communicated the fact that she was agreeable. “I definitely will, but as for now, I’m famished.”
Beau took their son from her, allowing Cerynise to unpack the victuals. Soon a delectable supper was laid out for all of them, and as her husband pulled around a chair to sit beside her, he leaned across his son to pluck at the large hole in her pocket.
“You ruined your dress shooting Alistair.”
Cerynise slipped a hand into her pocket and ruefully examined the rent as she thrust three fingers through the hole. “I really didn’t expect it to cause so much damage.”
Moon cackled in sudden amusement, feeling no pity for the men who had tried to kidnap her. “Jes’ think o’ what it did ta poor ol’ Alistair Winthrop.”
Cerynise realized she hadn’t seen Alistair’s body in the foyer when she came downstairs. “Where did you put him, anyway?”
“Moon and Thomas hauled his carcass out to the carriage house,” Beau replied. “There was no sense in keeping it in the hall where we’d stumble over it. The last of the storm should be beyond us by morning. If so, Sheriff Gates can be fetched as soon as it’s light. He’ll want to know about Frank Lester and my other suspicions.”
If Germaine had truly connived to kill, Cerynise had no doubt that justice would have its day. A shiver was elicited from her as she began to think of the verdict a jury would arrive at and wondered if a woman had ever been hanged in Charleston. Whether for man or woman, it was a gruesome train of thought for her to dwell on. “Let’s talk about something else right now.”
Beau readily conceded to her wishes. “Mr. Oaks said this afternoon that he and Bridget have finally set a date for their wedding. ’Twill be the second week after he returns from the Caribbean.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Cerynise replied, but as she realized that she’d be losing Bridget, she grew suddenly glum. “But I shall miss her terribly.”
“No need, madam,” her husband reassured her. “Bridget will be staying on as your maid and, in that capacity, will be traveling with us on the next voyage, much to Mr. Oaks’s delight. Of course, she’ll have to content herself with sharing his cabin, for my parents are also talking about coming with us.”
“Ye know, Cap’n,” Moon interjected with a chortle, “maybe ye oughta think ’bout takin’ on passengers on a regular basis. Ain’t no ship finer ’an the Audacious.”
Beau grinned and shook his head. “I rather enjoy searching out all that cargo I bring back to the Carolinas and I don’t think the passengers would be willing to pay fares that would equal the profits I now make.”
“Well, then if’n ye won’t consider that, maybe I can offer ye ’nother suggestion. I hears Billy Todd’s been lookin’ toward a naval career lately. If’n that be true, ye’ll be needin’ a cabin boy like meself ta see ta yer needs aboard that there fancy ship o’ yers.”
“That might be a possibility,” Beau allowed and then chuckled. “But you know you’ll have to tolerate Monsieur Philippe’s cooking.”
Moon drew his face up in a disgruntled frown. “Ye wouldn’t want ta choose betwixt the two o’ us, would ye, Cap’n?”
Beau shook his head as if sorely distressed by the choice presented him. “If I do, Moon, I’m afraid I won’t be letting Philippe go. I’ve gotten quite fond of his cooking over the last few years.”
Moon winced at the captain’s decision and tentatively took another taste of the clam croquettes. He gummed the food for a long moment reflectively before heaving a laborious sigh. “I su’pose I could get used ta this here stuff if’n I had ta.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to if you want to sail under me,” Beau stated candidly.
Moon cocked a squint toward him and chided, “You drive a hard bargain, Cap’n.”
Beau chuckled. “Aye, I do.”
* * *
The worst of the storm had passed by the time morning arrived. By the ninth hour the authorities had already been out to the Birminghams’ residence. When they left, they took Alistair’s remains and the injured Rudd with them. The barrister’s skull had been fractured, it was later determined, but he would likely recover. If he did, he’d probably spend the rest of his days in prison. There was, of course, a chance that he would hang, but that was for the jury to decide. The injured servants were far more fortunate, for Jasper and Cooper were already much improved and bent on restoring the house to its former splendor.
The following afternoon the sheriff came out to the house to inform Beau that Frank Lester had confessed that he had helped Wilson in an attempt on Cerynise’s life and that Germaine Hollingsworth had talked him into doing it, claiming that Beau had offended her. Upon her arrest, the woman had screamed denials like a cornered shrew. Her father had been outraged that such slander could be cast against his precious daughter and had threatened to see the sheriff thrown out of office. But Sheriff Gates had stood his ground and had taken Germaine into custody.
“What a relief,” Beau sighed after witnessing the sheriff’s departure. “Now I can stop fretting for your safety.”
Cerynise slipped her arms around his lean waist and rested a cheek against his broad chest. “Now I won’t have to feel like a prisoner in my own home.”
Beau leaned back to peruse her face. “What would you like to do outside our home to celebrate your new freedom, madam? Go to the theater? Have dinner somewhere? Perhaps a visit to the couturier would suit your mood. Or would a carriage ride suffice?”
Cerynise tilted her head at a reflective angle. “Philippe is a much better chef than anyone in the city. I’m not particularly bent on going to Madame Feroux’s and listening to her gibberish. There’s not a performance at the theater that we haven’t already seen. And I’m not interested right now in a carriage ride.”
“So tell me, madam, what is your pleasure?”
The comers of her lips turned upward enticingly as she rose on tiptoes to whisper near his cheek, “Playing in the study would suit my pleasure just fine, sir. Would you be interested?”
Beau’s eyes sparkled above a wide grin. “Absolutely, madam. It was just the very thing I was hoping you’d say.”
With a debonair grin, he offered his arm and escorted her into the front room, where he locked the door securely behind them.