Authors: Kate Worth
“And why wouldn’t I? Do you think a peer would hang for wiping scum like you off the earth?” Finn laughed. “Besides, you’ll be fish food in the Thames in half an hour. Say goodbye to your tackle,” he grinned.
“The gent’s name is Tom,” Dekker said quickly. “Paid me to kill ye… and yer missus. But I told ’im I’d have naught to do with the girl.”
“How noble.” Finn gritted his teeth. “How much did he pay you?”
“A monkey, an’ promised that much again once the job t’were done.”
Augustus pushed away the barrel of Finn’s pistol. “Killing this bastard will only force Clovershire to hire someone else. He turned to Dekker. “What do you say to a bargain? I’ll keep my friend Finn here from shooting your pecker off, and you lead us to your partner. And you can keep his blood money. The earl won’t be around to ask for it back since he’ll either be dead or on a slow boat to Australia. Of course, you’re welcome to share his fate.”
Dekker said nothing for several long moments. Impatient, Finn raised the gun again. “I’m itching for an excuse to kill you. I suggest you take the deal, it’s the best one you’re going to get.”
“Awright. Ye ’ave nothing’ t’ fear from me. But I can’t take you to ’im. I met ’im ’ere. Don’t know where the bloke lives.”
“If he makes contact with you again, we need to know immediately,” Finn leaned forward and pressed his gun to Dekker’s temple. “Immediately. Agreed?”
“Aye.”
Mission accomplished, Augustus and Finn slipped out the back door. The old friends walked together in silence, each mulling over what they had learned.
Augustus spoke first. “Every contact I have in the East End is keeping an eye out for Clovershire. Maggie and Grip will let us know if he shows up at the Horse. I know you’re worried about your wife; why don’t you join her in the country and let Cameron and me take care of things here.”
“I would feel better if I was there to protect them,” Finn conceded. “Thank you, Augustus.”
At Carlisle House Finn roused a groom to saddle his horse while he went inside to update Cameron on the situation. A half hour later he was galloping through the countryside, eager to reach Jane.
IT WAS A SLOW NIGHT, so it took Tom less than ten minutes to find a ferryman willing to float him to Middlesex for five quid. Luck was with him and so was the tide. The barge quickly left the commercial docks behind and glided past manor homes and farmland. Less than an hour later it bumped along a wooden jetty just beyond the old Brentford docks. Tom hopped up onto the planking. He picked his way past empty fish gutting tables and shacks filled with nets and empty barrels.
It was dark, but the waning moon cast just enough light for him to make his way west along the riverbank. Soon the large square shape of The Willows was outlined against the evening sky. His heart beat faster when he saw lanterns moving along the lawn. He crept close enough to count the guards then smiled. The men were maintaining a tight perimeter around the manor, but the old stone springhouse had been left unguarded.
He circled behind the gardens and silently entered the springhouse. On the back wall he felt along the sides of a wooden panel until he felt the hidden latch. Behind it was a narrow tunnel about three feet wide and four-and-a-half feet high. He slipped inside and pulled a candle and a box of lucifers from his waistcoat. The floor of the ancient priest hole was slimy, the air humid and thick with decay. Tom forced himself to move forward. Twice he lost his footing and stumbled to his knees in the slime, his fingers skating across the slick walls. Finally he reached the end of the tunnel. He held the candle between his teeth as he searched for the latch that opened the door into the storage room.
It was late and silence reigned as he pushed aside several sacks of grain and a large box of beeswax candles. He crawled under a table that had been placed in front of the tunnel opening. The room was located on the kitchen level at the rear of the house, so he was careful not to make too much noise lest he awaken a servant. He fingered the handle of a knife sheathed in his boot.
JANE HAD BARELY FINISHED the first page of
Sleeping Beauty
when Pip nodded off.
“You’ve had a big day,” she whispered, easing Pip onto the mattress. She leaned over and kissed her daughter’s forehead, then slipped out of the bed to open the curtains and watch the guards moving on the lawn below. Glowing lanterns glided over the grass casting ghostly shadows. A half dozen men were patrolling the grounds and she felt perfectly safe, but she still wished Finn were with her. He had become essential to her sense of wellbeing.
Her blood warmed whenever she thought of him. Her big, handsome husband had only to look at her in that dark, searching way and her body responded immediately, her nipples tightened and the pulse between her legs throbbed in anticipation. As soon as they tucked Pip in each night, they raced back to their room like children on Christmas morning, eager to unwrap each other. Falling onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, they pulled off clothes until nothing separated their heated bodies.
The things he did to her,
the things she did to him
! Her face burned to think of it.
Sometimes the physical intimacy and emotional connection were almost too much to bear. When they reached that state of bliss together, it was transcendent, at least for her. She had nothing to compare it to, but she couldn’t help but believe that what they experienced together was not commonplace. He had so much more knowledge of the world; his conquests were legendary and sometimes jealousy of all the women he had been with clawed at her, eating away at the edges of her happiness.
She pushed away feelings of discontent; there was no point in longing for what she could not have. Jane reminded herself to be practical and take comfort in the fact that he had married her, not any of those other women. That had to count for something.
But sometimes he looked at her with such tenderness that she dared to hope he was beginning to love her, too. Finn had turned out to be an excellent father, patient and loving, generous with his time and attention. He was a gentle, considerate lover and, she thought, a good friend as well. She was greedy to want more. Still, she longed to hear him say the words that would assure her that she held a special place in his heart.
The house was completely silent. Pip was snoring softly under the covers. Mrs. Williams and the rest of the servants had gone to bed hours ago. Jane picked up an copy of
Mansfield Park
and flipped through it, but her mind refused to focus. She lay on a chaise in front of the hearth and stared absently into the dying fire. Eventually, she slipped into a light sleep.
TOM SEARCHED THE WOODEN shelves and quickly found what he was looking for. Lamp oil. Lots of it. Cans upon cans, in fact. He took two up the stairs and crept to the front door, which was bolted from within. He poured the accelerant all over the floor of the entrance hall, splashed some on the walls and curtains, then trailed it up the steps to the first landing. When the cans were empty, he returned to the storage room and retrieved two more, this time dousing the servant’s stairs at the rear of the house.
After emptying the last can, he stood back and admired the lake of oil spreading across the hall. Eager to watch the house burn, he turned back toward the storage room for pine kindling. He slipped on the spreading oil and flopped around for several moments before he was able to slide to a dry section of floor and right himself. He cursed softly and shrugged off his sodden waistcoat then wiped his hands dry using a linen tablecloth he tore from a table.
Tom returned with several strips of kindling which he lit and tossed onto the front stairs and window sills. When flames began to lick up the walls, he hastened to the back stairs and did the same.
His goal nearly accomplished, he stopped one last time to admire his handiwork. Fire raced up the curtains and fanned along the ceiling. He heard the men outside yelling in panic as the front hall exploded into an inferno.
As Tom slipped back down to the storage room he heard glass shatter. Moments later voices begin to scream. Full scale panic set in; servants shouted confused, conflicting orders.
“Fetch water!”
“No, that’ll take too long. Smother it with blankets!”
“It’s too far gone, we’ll all be kilt if we don’t get out now. Crawl out a window. Save yerself!”
“We must wake her ladyship and the child.”
“There’s no way to get to ’em.
They’re trapped
!”
“The stairs are ablaze, front and back!”
Tom couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud, but his voice was lost in the pandemonium. A violent, demonic joy coiled through him. He felt powerful, masterful, omnipotent. It was
he
who had created this destruction,
he
who would reap the rewards of his audacious creation.
Tom strode back into the storage room unnoticed by the fleeing servants and prepared to crawl back through the tunnel.
Finn leaned forward and patted Samrin’s sweaty neck. “You’ve done an honest day’s work, old boy. I’ll make sure you’re amply rewarded with oats and a nice long rubdown.” Moonshine sparkled on the Thames below him, winking between the trees as he slowed to a pace that would allow the horse to cool down before they reached the stables.
As he neared the Willows, the guards walked out to greet him.
“An uneventful night, I hope,” Finn said as he swung from the saddle.
“Completely, my lord. Nothing but insects and owls. Ain’t spied so much as a shadow.”
“Excellent,” Finn said, relief flooding through him. Stones crunched underfoot as the guard fell in step beside him. He allowed himself to relax for the first time since Clovershire had attempted to snatch Pip in Hyde Park. The day had seemed endless. His mind kept returning to the horrible specter of losing Pip or Jane.
He would not allow it.
Suddenly one of the watchmen shouted, “Fire!” Finn’s head snapped up. Light flared from inside the windows where flames raced up curtains, jumping from window to window until the entire main level was a raging inferno. Finn sprinted toward the house, adrenaline coursing through every muscle in his body. He knew Jane and Pip were probably asleep on the upper floors. How long would it take them to smell the smoke? To know that they had only moments to escape?
A window shattered and black smoke billowed out, curling out into the night air.
“Jane!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.
Jane sat bolt upright, startled by the shouting coming from outside and downstairs. After a few confused, sleep-addled moments she understood. The house was on fire!
She lifted Pip into her arms and raced to the bedroom door. Smoke was seeping under the threshold. Think. Think. She forced down panic. How close were the flames? Should she go out into the hall to assess the extent of the fire, or was the closed door the only thing keeping the fire from spreading into her room?
Pip wriggled in her arms and said sleepily, “What’s wrong, Mama?”
“Stay calm, Pip. The house is on fire. We have to get out.” She set Pip down, ran to the window and threw open the sash. With a rush of relief she saw Finn running toward the house.
“Finn! Here! Over here!” She waved her arms until he stopped beneath her. “I’ll be right back,” she yelled before running to the bed and tearing off the counterpane. She tossed the thick blanket down to him. “Have the men hold the edges taut. I’ll drop Pip.”
Pip wrapped her arms around Jane’s waist and howled. “No. Don’t make me!” she begged with tears streaming down her face.
Jane knelt down and said in a stern, urgent voice. “We’ll burn to death if we don’t get out now. I don’t have time to coddle you, Pip. You must be brave for Mama… can you do it? Papa will catch you. I promise.” She said with a confidence she did not feel.
Pip nodded and Jane lifted her up to the sill.
Finn and three of the guards held the corners of the large blanket to form a taut springboard. They coughed and squinted in the heat and smoke.
“Jane, hurry! You must drop her now!” Finn yelled.
The fall was at least thirty feet. She said a silent prayer then cradled Pip in her arms. Jane held her out as far as she could before tossing her into the night air. Pip fell as if in slow motion, landed in the blanket and bounced once onto the ground unharmed.
Jane heard Finn say, “Good job, sweetheart,” before he looked up at Jane. “Quickly, Jane!”
“It will never hold me,” she shouted. “I’m going to find a way out downstairs.”
“No!” he bellowed. “The fire is spreading too fast. You’ll never make it. Jump!
Now, damn it!”
She considered the distance and the blanket for just a moment before making her decision. “I can make it to the priest hole. It tunnels to the springhouse out back!” She left the window with the sound of Finn swearing behind her.
Jane slipped on a pair of boots then doused her sheet with the contents of her water pitcher. She wrapped the wet cloth around herself, covering everything but her eyes. A wall of heat hit her when she threw open the door. Her lungs constricted against acrid smoke as she crouched low and felt her way along the wall to the top of the front staircase intense heat held her back. The stairs were engulfed and the paintings lining the walls were beginning to burst into flames. She backed away and ran to the servants’ stairs. Flames met her near the bottom, but she thought she saw a break on the other side where the slate floor spanned the older part of the house.