Moon Cutters (27 page)

‘Please don’t hurt Caesar,’ Miranda said as the servant dragged the reluctant dog from her side.

‘He must learn who’s the master.’

She would leave – go to Fletcher at Monksfoot Abbey. She turned away from him. ‘You’re vile, and I’ll never marry you. I’m leaving.’

‘I really do think you should reconsider your decision,’ he said when she reached the door. ‘But if you do decide to leave me, understand this, Miranda: you’ll never see your sister again.’

Hysterical fear rose up inside her and she fought to control it, so her throat dried up and strangled a scream. ‘What have you done with her?’

‘Nothing …
yet!
’

Mrs Pridie appeared. ‘Bring Miss Jarvis to the stable yard in about ten minutes.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Mrs Pridie’s hand slid firmly under her elbow. ‘Come along with me, Miss Jarvis.’

She pulled away and gazed back at him. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘You’ll see.’

And she did see. She saw a man devoid of any emotion whip an animal into submission. It went on for ten minutes. Caesar, tied to a metal ring set into the wall, had no means of defending himself. Around them, the horses fretted in their stalls.

Finally, the dog stopped trying to escape and began to endure, flinching every time the lash landed. His agonized yelps became squeals, then whimpers. He lay on his side, his body quivering and his tongue lolling out as he panted for breath. His rough coat was streaked in blood.’

Shocked and sickened by the cruelty of the beating, she pushed between them and screamed, ‘Stop it!’

The spent tip of the whip caught her arm and laid a fiery welt across the pale flesh as Sir James snapped it back.

He gazed at her when she cried out. ‘You’re making a habit of saving those who are being deservedly punished. Now look what you’ve made me do. I must find a salve for it so it doesn’t turn nasty.’

She wondered if there was a salve for
his
nastiness.

It seemed not. He took up a pistol and primed it before beckoning to her. ‘Such devotion to each other is laudable, even if it is only a dog. I’ll allow you to put him out of his misery, my dear. You just have to put the pistol against his forehead and pull the trigger.’

She could hear Roma and Nero’s frenzied barking coming from the house as she crouched at the dog’s side. Tears spilled from her eyes. She untied the rope securing him to the metal ring. ‘I’m so sorry, Caesar.’

The dog’s tail circled in a feeble wag, and he whined and gently licked her hand. He struggled to rise and stood there, all pride gone. His legs were splayed painfully apart, his usually proud tail curled under his rear.

Dragging her to her feet, Sir James placed the pistol in her hands. ‘Oh … do spare me the drama of an emotional deathbed scene and get on with it, girl.’

She moved away from him, the weapon cold and heavy in her hands. ‘I can’t kill him … I can’t.’

His eyes were merciless. ‘You can and you will.’

The pistol wavered in her hands as she tried to take aim. Caesar lifted his head and gazed at her. His eyes were a beautiful, deep brown, and so trusting that she felt sick.

‘Do it now, Miranda, else I’ll beat him to death,’ Sir James said.

She believed him. She must put the dog out of his misery. But why should he die when she had the power of life or death in her hands.

She found a spark of defiance and turned towards Sir James. The gun steadied in her hands. ‘Come, Caesar.’

The dog limped to where she stood and pressed against her side, leaving smears of blood on her skirt. ‘Go … Find Fletcher – he’ll look after you,’ she said.

The dog left and headed off towards the copse, and she hoped he’d make it.

Sir James gazed at her in amused surprise. ‘I didn’t expect you to turn on me. If you intend to kill me, do it now, for you’ll never get another chance. You can’t miss from that range.’

Miranda’s finger tightened on the trigger, and they stared at each other. Her arms were beginning to ache from supporting the weight of the gun. The whip had landed across the muscle of her upper arm and it throbbed.

‘The longer you put it off, the harder it will become.’

Her arms weakened a little more, and her hands wobbled. As the gun dipped, she jerked it up. It discharged. The noise startled her and the horses alike. The horses squealed and danced about. The bullet chipped one of the cobbles near Sir James’s foot. It bounced up to bury itself in a wooden post.

He took a step forward and wrenched the gun from her hand. ‘You’d never have found your sister if you’d killed me.’

‘I never intended to shoot you. It went off by accident.’

Somebody had let the other two dogs out, for they came from the house, noses to the ground and baying as they cast around for the scent of the injured Caesar.

They came to heel at his whistle and he sent them back to the house.

He shrugged. ‘Caesar will find a place where he can lie low and lick his wounds. The foxes will pick up his scent, run him down and tear him apart. If he escapes that, he’ll come home again when he’s hungry. Then I can beat him all over again.’

‘You loathsome cur. You’re cold-blooded, and I’ll never become your wife,’ she called out when he turned and walked away.

‘We’ll see.’

When she got back to the house, she went up to her room. Mrs Pridie brought her up some refreshment. She seated herself at the end of the bed. ‘You’ve had a hard time of it.’

Tears spilled down Miranda’s cheeks at her sympathetic voice. ‘I don’t know what to do for the best. I wish my mother and father were still alive.’

‘Aye, you must miss them. That was a cruel thing the master did. I’ve sent someone after the dog, to make sure the creature ends up in safe hands.’

And what of Lucy? Was she safe? She sniffed at the tea in case something had been added to it.

‘It’s quite safe, I promise.’

‘Do you know where Lucy is, Mrs Pridie?’

‘I wish that I did.’ The housekeeper lowered her voice to little more than a murmur. ‘You should get yourself away from here.’

‘I can’t leave, not without my sister – and he knows it.’

A low grumble of thunder followed her words, cushioned within the bruised layers of the gathering cloud mass on the horizon.

They were in for a storm.

The storm had moved quickly over the district, offering a drenching downpour at just the right time for the corn crops to benefit from it. The gutters gushed noisily, the water expelled through the mouths of the grinning gargoyles situated at intervals around the roof.

The trees soaked up the rain and the leaves fattened into their full summer plumage, so green that it hurt the eyes. The clouds rolled away, taking the thunder with it. The sun came out and steam was sucked into the air. The land became dry underfoot, except for some dark patches in the undergrowth.

Fletcher called on Mrs Swift at the rectory to see if there was anything he could do to help.

There wasn’t.

She was as uncompromising as ever, her lips pursed into a thin line. ‘Sir James has arranged everything, and I’m to depart after the funeral. I must say this: I’ll be pleased to leave this unholy place. If you want to see the reverend, he’s lying in front of the altar. Perhaps you’d lock the door afterwards.’

He went across to the church. The reverend had his hands arranged one over the other on his chest. The gravediggers were already at work, preparing the dark bed that would swallow and start to consume his body, come morning.

The interior of the church was quiet and dim, and it smelled of dust. The weight of it lay across his shoulders and the quietness pushed against his ears. Goosebumps prickled along his spine. It felt as though he was being watched.

A beam cracked in the bell tower, making him jump. A bell rope swung. He checked the back door, bolting it from the inside, then went out the front and turned the key in the lock. The dog was lying in the porch. He stooped to the bloodied creature.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a whipped dog, and it didn’t take much imagination to know who had dealt the savage blows on this one.

‘I have two choices. I could finish you off with a rock, or I could carry you home across my saddle and see if I can patch you up. Either option will hurt.’

Caesar lifted his head and whimpered.

‘I hear you, Caesar. We’ll see what we can do.’ He took off his jacket to cushion the dog in and buttoned it around him. Lifting the creature across his horse’s shoulders, Fletcher mounted behind him. They went slowly, the animal giving little cries of distress now and again.

Fletcher gentled him. ‘I don’t know what you did to deserve this, but my uncle has certainly turned you into a whipped cur.’

Dog and Dog waddled from the stables and gave duty growls when they saw him. At the same time, they wagged their tails and lifted their heads to have their ears fondled. They’d finally abandoned their daytime vigil outside Silas’s room and offered Fletcher the dubious honour of their friendship during the day. At night, out of habit, they still slept in Silas’s room, which had begun to smell like a kennel.

‘What have you got there?’ Tom said, sauntering out from the stable.

‘One of my uncle’s dogs – it’s been whipped.’

‘The poor beggar – it’s Caesar. Leave him with me; I know someone who will doctor him.’

Fletcher took a stab in the dark. Tom and Silas had been lads together. He’d know just about everything there was to know, and wondered if he’d part with any of it. ‘The mysterious monk, perhaps?’

Dark eyes challenged him. ‘What do you know about the monk?’

‘I’ve met and spoken briefly with the man. He’s no apparition, and I need to talk to him.’

Tom shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen him lately, and I’ve never seen his face. Silas has entertained him over the past couple of years. Never could figure out what they were saying because they spoke in the Frenchie language. Silas told me he was a horse doctor, and he’d known him from the past. The monk used to come and go, usually when the moon was showing her dark side – as though he didn’t want to be seen. Of course, rumours got around. We thought it would encourage strangers to keep their noses out of our business.’

‘Then you don’t know the monk’s identity?’

Tom avoided his eyes. ‘If Silas trusted someone, then so did I. He had more substance to him than any ghost, but I could only guess as to who he might be.’

‘And your guess is?’

Tom shrugged and held out his arms for Caesar. ‘Some French smuggler Silas had struck up a friendship with. Let’s get the poor creature seen to.’

‘Lead the way and I’ll follow, since there’s something I need to tell you. Did you know that Reverend Swift died last night?’

Tom nodded. ‘Poor bugger. I heard he’d been poisoned, probably by his wife’s tongue.’

Tom would not sound so flippant when he’d absorbed the next bit of information. ‘The reverend made a deathbed statement, and I delivered that to my legal representative to deal with at his discretion. On the strength of that missive, I believe it’s to be handed over to the proper authorities, and we’ll shortly be investigated by the full force of the customs.’

Alarm filled Tom’s eyes. ‘When?’

‘I don’t know when.’

‘Has your uncle been informed?’

‘Not yet. I intend to do so later in the day, so you’ve both been served with fair warning and can act appropriately.’

‘What does “act appropriately” mean?’

‘That you can gather together your ill-gotten gains and leave town, or stand and fight. I’d prefer you didn’t do the latter on my property.’

Tom swore. ‘We have a large consignment coming in while the moon is on the wane.’

‘I don’t want to know.’ Fletcher looked around him. He was in part of the house he’d never been in before. There were no windows, just a corridor with small alcoves and planks to serve as beds, he supposed. One had a mattress and a blanket. There were a couple of doors on the other side. A lone candle burned at the other end where the passage widened out into a common room. ‘Fetch a blanket and spread it on that table, Tom.’

But Tom had gone, melting away into the darkness and leaving the lantern burning.

Fletcher did it himself. There was a table and two chairs. He rolled the dog gently on to the table and reclaimed his coat. When Caesar emitted a deep, painful sounding huff, it sounded like a man coughing, and the hair on the nape of Fletcher’s neck stood on end.

Beyond that, steps led upwards towards a light. Another flight led down into darkness. The place smelled musty, of bat droppings and seaweed, but it was dry.

‘Adrian Taunt, come out of your bloody hidey-hole before I dig you out. I’m sick of all this subterfuge.’

There was a chuckle, and a pair of sandal-clad feet came into view on the stairs. They belonged to a man in a salt-stained brown robe. He moved to where the injured dog lay, his hands moving gently over the animal as he whispered words of comfort to him. He sounded Caesar’s lungs before he lifted his head. ‘His heart is good and his lungs sound clear. He should survive if shock doesn’t shut down his organs. Is this my brother’s work?’

‘If the baronet is your brother, yes.’

The man gazed down at the animal, then back to Fletcher. ‘James is my half-brother; we had different mothers. I’ll clean the dog up. His wounds will heal and he’ll survive, and in a day or so he’ll have got over his distress, won’t you, boy?’

One wag of the dog’s tail signalled agreement.

The man looked directly at him, his gaze travelling from head to toe and back again before he smiled. ‘I didn’t know I had a son until two years ago.’

‘And I didn’t know who my father was. Oh yes, I knew it was Adrian Taunt. I was told he was a soldier who fathered me, then went abroad and was never seen again. Your true identity was kept a secret. Even my mother would not discuss it. I never imagined you were a monk.’

‘While I never imagined I was anything but, until two years ago.’

‘Sometimes I thought it might have been my uncle who fathered me because we are so alike, and I was ashamed because of his kinship. Then Silas said I was related to him, and I thought he might have fathered me, and that Adrian Taunt was just an empty name to satisfy my curiosity. Now it’s come full circle and I’m still ashamed. Perhaps they were right to keep me in ignorance.’