Corey McFadden (30 page)

“Aunt Joanna!” Emma said in not much more than a whisper. Scrambling to the figure, Emma shook what she hoped was Aunt Joanna’s shoulder. Tom was right behind her, bending over with fear in his eyes.

“I’m
here, Aunt Joanna! It’s Emma!” the child said.

The body moved as if agitated and made grunting noises. Emma could see white bands around the dark figure. Feeling carefully, she could tell that there were ropes binding her beloved aunt.

“You’re all tied up, Aunt Joanna,” Emma whispered as she tugged ineffectively at the bonds. “I can’t get any of the knots loose. We’ll have to go for help.” With that, the figure stopped its struggling, as if its point had been made. Emma stood, about to grab Tom’s hand, when hands seized them both from behind.

“I’ve got you now, you little brats!” hissed a voice close in the child’s ear. “Be quiet or I’ll kill you and your idiot brother. Your former governess, too.”

Emma twisted her head around as much as she could. She stared into ice cold eyes, mad eyes. Her Aunt Eleanor was going to kill them all. It was too much for her ten-year-old mind. With the barest of sighs, the child sank to the beach in a dead faint.

* * * *

“What in hell’s name are you doing, Eleanor?” This night was going from bad to worse.

“I found the girl and the half-wit down here next to the governess, Hawton. I heard her say they were going for help. You didn’t expect me to just let them go, did you?”

“Oh, God, what are we going to do now? This is disastrous,” Hawton snarled. He was furious. The runaway Irish girl had given him the fright of his life. She had cried out one last time as he came upon her. A crack on the head had silenced the girl, and now she, too, lay bound and unconscious down the beach. Eleanor had run the other girls back to his cottage, before they had a chance to realize that the pursuit of their friend was deadly serious. And just when he thought his obstacles were behind him, he had seen Joanna, her eyes wide with horror, staring first at him, then at the limp bundle he had carried in his arms.

Now he drew a length of cloth from his pocket, thankful that he had had the foresight to bring gags in case something went wrong, and wrapped it tightly around the unconscious Emma’s mouth. Tom just stared at them both as Hawton gagged him too.

Plans this far awry had a way of twisting up badly. And while the children would have presented a problem in the long run, it was a problem Hawton was prepared to address at some later date. Not now, on the beach in the middle of the night, with a murder being committed in Dufton and Irish girls being held for prostitution in his cottage.

“Well, it’s plain we cannot let them go now, Hawton,” came Eleanor’s furious voice in the dark. “You’ll have to kill them.”

Hawton froze at her words. He considered himself as brave as the next man but he’d never bargained for the slaughter of children. And even if he could steel himself to do it, how could he do it to make it look like an accident? Or at least something that had nothing to do with himself or Eleanor? It was too dangerous to leave bodies lying around. Blood could splatter in the most unpredictable way, and he didn’t fancy getting caught because of an overlooked blood stain somewhere on his clothes. No, they would have to disappear entirely, but how was he to manage that?

With the clarity of a lightning bolt in the dark, the solution hit him. In a few hours, maybe less, an unmarked carriage would be at the door of his cottage, ready to set out for London. In it he would put the Irish girls, drugged and lethargic, as planned. Why not send Joanna and the children along as well? He could come up with some story, couldn’t he, about how Joanna herself had kidnapped the children? After all, the only person in the world likely to put up much of a fuss was Sir Giles, and he, in all likelihood, was breathing his last about now.

There was only one serious hitch he could think of as his brain worked feverishly on salvaging this debacle. He would have to go to London with them. He was quite sure the minions sent by Lord Beeson to drive the carriage would take no responsibility for what would be an obvious kidnapping, however he explained the circumstances. Moreover, he had no wish to tell them of Sir Giles’s murder—the fewer people who knew about it, the less likely they were to be caught or blackmailed. Lord Beeson would need soothing. He was a careful, fastidious man who planned his operations with precision, and who had impressed upon Hawton, in no uncertain terms, his intolerance for foul-ups.

“I have a better idea, Eleanor,” Hawton said finally, after making sure Joanna was still securely tied. “We cannot kill them here. It is too risky, and the last thing we want is more risk. Instead, I will take them to London, along with the shipment of Irish girls. I’ll present them to Lord Beeson, explaining that the foul-up was caused by one of the girls not being drugged properly. He should pay us more, as well. We can accuse Joanna of kidnapping the children.”

In the darkness, Hawton could barely make out the gleam of Eleanor’s teeth as she smiled slowly, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Let Beeson and his whorehouse deal with them, he thought to himself. It was, after all, not his fault that one of the Irish girls had been awake enough to scream down the length of the county.

“I like it, Hawton,” came Eleanor’s voice, purring with obvious satisfaction. “I like what they’ll do to our ex-governess. Just what the little tart really deserves, isn’t it? And since Giles is dead, no one will be very concerned, will they?”

“Precisely, my dear,” said Hawton, his relief short-lived as the twists and turns of the problem began to reassert themselves in his consciousness. “I don’t know how we’ll all fit into one carriage, now that I have to go, too. Let’s get them back to my cottage,” he said. “You carry the girl and march the boy alongside. I’ll bring the governess. And for God’s sake, let’s try not to make any more noise. We might as well have hired bagpipes to accompany us this evening!” He shouldered his burden and strode off into the dark, leaving Eleanor to struggle along behind. He knew she loathed even touching the half-wit, but she would have to deal with him, like it or not.

He cut along the small path that led slightly up and away from the beach, toward his cottage, breathing more easily now that he knew he could not be seen from the house. He could hear Eleanor grunting under her burden behind him. He could have left her to stand guard and come back and fetched the children himself, but enough things had gone wrong tonight that he would brook no further delays.

He opened the door to the cottage quietly, schooling his face into an expression of bland composure. Good. The Irish girls were lying on the floor, wrapped in their threadbare capes near the fire he had left burning low. They appeared to be sleeping soundly; not one so much as flickered an eyelid. He carried the lump that was Joanna into the small room to the rear and dropped her onto his bed. Even in his angry state, he felt a stirring as he noted her trim ankles peeping beneath the blanket she was wrapped in. It was too bad Eleanor was in the next room. He had no doubt that in the cramped coach over the next few days he would have no opportunity to avail himself of Joanna’s delights, and when they arrived in London she would belong to someone else before he got a chance at her.

He left her on the bed without a word, ignoring the grunts and the twisting beneath the rough blanket, and walked back into the main room. Eleanor had entered and had sat Emma in a chair. Tom sat by the hearth where he had fallen. The boy stared at Emma’s white face as if the sight of her were his last touch with life itself. Emma was stirring, her eyes rolling in her head.

“I am going back for the girl who ran from us, Eleanor,” Hawton said in clipped tones. Only his fingering of the heavy purse in his pocket was keeping him steady. “She’s lying aways down the beach. Keep Emma as quiet as you can. The coach could arrive at any time, and I want everything ready.”

When he returned a few minutes later bearing the unconscious girl, Eleanor had thought of a troublesome consequence to Hawton’s plan. “But what will happen to the guardianship if there are no children, Hawton?” she wailed. “With Giles dead and the children as well, what happens to me?”

“Think, Eleanor!” he snarled, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a shake. “Giles has no close blood heirs with the children gone. Remember what I told you about his will? If everyone else is dead, you are the final heir, you get it all! It’s something we would have managed eventually. We’re just taking care of it all at once, that’s all!” He softened his grip to a caress as he watched comprehension dawning in her frightened eyes. She would be the heiress, he reminded himself. And as of this minute he resolved that he would, indeed, marry her. His hands slipped away from her shoulders, trailing gently down her sides. He pulled her closely to him and nuzzled her hair. It smelled of goose grease.

“I need you to be strong now, my beautiful one,” he whispered, his voice all tenderness. “I will be gone at least a week. There will be extra profit in this for us all, but there is extra risk as well, and Lord Beeson will need soothing. But he will also need to improve the delivery of these girls. It was an unforgivable slip-up to have the one child awake and screaming. That is no doubt the direct cause of all of these added complications.” He gently disengaged himself from Eleanor’s tight embrace. It would not be so awful, being married to Lady Eleanor. She would bring him money and social standing. And if he allowed her her dalliances, she would have to allow him his. And if she did not, he would find a way, anyway.

“It will be a difficult week for me,” she sniffed. “I hope I’ll be hearing that your man in Dufton has succeeded, and I’ll be dealing with the flight of the governess and the children. How do I explain that she and the children are nowhere to be found?”

“I have thought that through, Eleanor. The easiest way to keep a story straight is to say very little in the first place. I will leave a note to say that, unable to sleep, I heard the noise of a carriage in the night. I checked the house and found that Sir Giles’s office had been rifled and it appeared there was money missing. When I went to awaken Lady Chapman to report the theft, I found her gone and the children, too. My note will say that I suspect they have gone north to Carlisle and that I am in hot pursuit. You need know nothing at all about any of this, except, when confronted with the idea that Joanna has kidnapped the children you must say that you overheard Giles and Joanna having a dreadful fight before he left. You heard him say he had discovered she was really just a tart before she came here. He yelled at her that he would not tolerate another slut for a wife and he would have the marriage annulled. It will appear that she seized the opportunity presented by Sir Giles’s absence to kidnap the children and take the money and disappear. I’ll try to post a ransom note from one of our stops on the road. Anyway, with Sir Giles dead, the authorities will not be pressured to exert themselves in the matter.”

Eleanor was thoughtful for a moment. He could see that she was working it through in her head. Just as well. If there was a flaw in this thin story, he wanted to catch it now, before it caught them.

“I guess so,” she said slowly. “No one needs to have heard the quarrel except me. And the fact that the servants knew nothing of this quarrel will make even more sense when it is found that she has fled. She would never have wanted anyone to be suspicious of her plans.” She paused again, her brow furrowed.

“Sit down, Eleanor, and I’ll make some tea,” he finally said, willing his voice to sound calm. “You are right that we should talk all of this through, since our plans have been turned upside down. But you must be quiet and let me puzzle it out. Everything will be all right if we don’t get too upset to think.”

He had set up the tea things, swinging the kettle off the hob. He worked in silence, his mind running in furious, frantic circles. It was all well and good to tell her to be calm, but he needed badly to calm himself. There were too many variables now, too many things that had gone wrong.

“But, wait, Hawton, they all love her,” Eleanor said, breaking the silence. “No one will ever think ill of her. She has bewitched everyone.”

“They love her now. But they’ll be quick enough to believe ill of her when Sir Giles is found dead under mysterious circumstances and she has fled in the night with the children. It almost makes me sorry I set up Sir Giles’s murder to cast the blame on someone else, but there will be those who link Joanna to his death, regardless.”

Hawton ran his hands through his hair. He was sweating in spite of the chill in the air. He blew on his hot tea while Eleanor did the same, her eyes never leaving his face. He took a few sips of tea.

“See,” he went on. “Emma has her cloak over her nightdress and Tom has his coat on. They are both wearing their regular shoes, not night slippers. And Joanna is wearing the same. You must get into their rooms tonight and remove an outfit for Tom and a dress each for Joanna and Emma. Hide them in your room until you can smuggle them away from the house. It will look as though she planned to take them away and hold them for ransom or some kind of settlement with Sir Giles. You must also leave my note in the hallway and make a bit of a mess in Sir Giles’s office. No one but me knows how much money is supposed to be in there, me and Sir Giles, and at least he won’t be around to argue the point. Do you think you can do this? Everyone will still be asleep when we finish here, so you’ll have time.”

Eleanor was quiet for a moment, sipping her tea. “I’m sure I could manage that. It would only take a few moments,” she finally answered. “But what happens afterwards?”

“When I return in a week’s time, I will have a sad tale to tell of having traced them as far as Carlisle and then scouring the country for the week.” He sat back, rather pleased with himself.

“But Hawton, what if the authorities try to trace them?”

“Then they won’t find anything, will they? Joanna will have vanished. Abroad in the night as she is, she may well be assumed to have fallen afoul of some highway villains, and the children as well. Who can prove otherwise, my dear? It will be highly regrettable. We will have been badly misled as to her character. You will be prostrate for at least a week. There will be evidence from only you and me, and everything we say will fit into this scenario.” He finished with a flourish. He would almost be enjoying himself if the stakes weren’t so high. He wished he could feel secure that Eleanor could get this right. If she forgot any part of it in her brandy-befogged state....