Authors: KJ Charles
Trust me, trust me, trust me…
“Then do it. What else do you need to know?” Sir Hubert asked.
“How you want to play this. Who’s being thrown to the wolf. Let’s make an arrangement.” Daniel jerked his head in the direction of James and Lady Armstrong. “Do you want them hamstrung, cut off or dead?”
Sir Hubert was gobbling like a turkey. “What the— Are you mad?”
“No?” said Daniel, surprised. “You don’t want rid of them? I’d assumed you’d kill two birds with one stone.”
“Why the devil would I
want
rid of
my wife and son?” Sir Hubert was an odd shade of puce.
“Well, they’re cuckolding you.”
The words, said with casual certainty, dropped like stones on ice. Sir Hubert stood quite still. Curtis felt a fierce, prideful smile curving his lips.
“You beautiful bastard,” he murmured, and held the Webley ready.
“Tripe,” James said. “How dare you. Pater, don’t listen to this rubbish.”
Lady Armstrong was giving angry little gasps. “Hubert, I hope you don’t intend to let this man speak of me like that.”
“You’re a damned liar,” Sir Hubert told Daniel, raising the shotgun. Curtis moved the Webley, aiming at his host’s sweaty forehead.
“If you shoot me, you’ll hang,” Daniel reminded him.
“You’re lying. Admit it!”
“All right, all right, I’m lying.” There was a contemptuous sneer in Daniel’s voice. “Of course your wife doesn’t prefer a lusty young lad between her legs to a fat old man sweating away. Of course James would never let you down, when has he ever done that? Of course the servants don’t know.”
Sir Hubert’s head jolted, as if struck. Preston was staring straight ahead.
“March?” said Sir Hubert. “Is this—”
“Darling, of course it’s not true,” said Lady Armstrong. “Honestly, you must see what he’s doing.”
“March?”
March glanced at his master and away. He opened his mouth and shut it, uncertain for once. “Sir…”
“It’s not his fault,” Daniel said. “After all, you already knew, really, didn’t you? All those energetic walks you don’t go on. All those trips to London while you work, those jaunts to the caves together—”
James was purple-faced. “Shut up you bloody dago. Shut up!”
“If you like.” Daniel grinned. “For the record, though, Armstrong…your mother’s a whore.”
“Don’t you talk about her!” James screamed, and there was all the betrayal anyone needed in that protective flare.
“You little swine.” Sir Hubert was staring at his son.
“Pater—” James said urgently.
“Ungrateful worthless beast.” The old man’s voice was thick.
“Yes,” Daniel said. “If only he’d died instead of Martin. Haven’t you always thought so?”
Sir Hubert’s face said everything. Father and son stared at each other, mouths working, neither able to find words.
“Hubert, listen to me,” said Lady Armstrong urgently. “This is all lies.”
“Holt told us everything,” Daniel said. “He begged for his life. Gave us all the juicy details.” He looked at James. “You might have chosen someone more trustworthy to brag to.”
Lady Armstrong swung to glare at James, lips drawn back over her pretty white teeth in a snarl. Sir Hubert gave a painful gasp. And James Armstrong howled his rage and frustration as he brought his shotgun up in a fluent motion, with Daniel at point-blank range.
Curtis shot him through the temple.
James’s head snapped back with a spray of blood. His body toppled and fell. There was a second’s silence, then both Lady Armstrong and Sir Hubert screamed, “No!”
Lady Armstrong fell to her knees, reaching for the corpse whose blue eyes gazed sightlessly up. “Jimmy,” she sobbed. “Jimmy, darling? Jimmy!”
Sir Hubert stared, jaw slack, gun loose in his grip. Preston was backing away. March had his shotgun pointed at Daniel, but he didn’t look about to shoot. He stared from master to mistress.
“James,” rasped Sir Hubert. He took a step forward, almost tottering. “Sophie.”
“Don’t come near us.” Lady Armstrong leaned over the body like a bitch protecting her pups, face distorted, tears running down her face. Her voice was raw. “Get away, you stupid hateful fat filthy old pig. Get away from me!”
“I expect Vaizey will be able to arrange some sort of pardon if one of you talks,” Daniel said. “The other will swing, of course. Who will it be?”
Sophie Armstrong turned to him, face distorted with grief, and began to speak. A single shot cracked, and blood bloomed across her chest. She stared stupidly up, mouth open, and then fell forward.
“Oh, sir,” said March.
Sir Hubert lowered his gun, gazing at the body of his wife slumped over the body of his son. At the window Curtis had the Webley in a two-handed grip, gaze locked on the old man. He was trying to say something, eyes vague, mouth working. He raised the rifle. The barrel wavered. Then, in an abrupt motion, he reversed it, jammed the end of the barrel awkwardly into his mouth, and reached for the trigger. His arm was just long enough.
Curtis winced at the shot. He looked away from the bloody ruin of Sir Hubert’s skull, out of the window, and saw something on the hills.
“Hell and damnation!” He took one swift look to check March wasn’t about to fire, then hurtled down the stairs, leaping over breaking glass and taking the steps in three strides. He slowed as he came out of the folly door, so as not to startle March into shooting, but the servant was bent over his master’s body, murmuring. Preston was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s the other one?” he demanded, scanning the trees around.
“Gone,” said Daniel. “He’s unarmed, and has as much to lose as anyone.”
Curtis looked him over. Dishevelled in the baggy stolen clothes, grubby and unwashed, heavy black stubble already turning to beard, face grey in the thin morning light.
“Daniel,” he said quietly.
March straightened to stare at them. Curtis levelled the Webley at him. “Gun down. Don’t be a fool, man, your master’s dead.”
March’s face worked, but he lowered his shotgun.
“Step away. Daniel, take it. Sir Maurice is coming, I saw at least four motorcars. We don’t have long.”
“They’ll get you,” March said venomously as Daniel took the gun from his hand with extreme caution. “You’ll be found out. Sodomite.”
Curtis punched him, without warning, in the sweet spot under the chin, and watched him drop. He shrugged at Daniel’s look. “I don’t want him in the way. Come on.”
As they hurried through the young woods that Sir Hubert would never see grow, Curtis said, “How did you know?”
“It was glaringly obvious. You didn’t notice?”
“You made that happen on
guesswork
?”
“No,” said Daniel. “Yes. I did. I— Hell.” He spun away, doubling over, and retched, coughing and choking as he spat out thin watery vomit. “Shit. Oh shit.”
Curtis grabbed him, hands on slender shoulders as they heaved. “It’s all right. Shh. You’re safe.”
“They’re not.” Daniel wiped his mouth with the back of a shaking hand and straightened cautiously. “The devil. I call myself a pacifist. That was wholesale slaughter.”
“You didn’t do it.”
“I made it happen. All of it. Even James, you wouldn’t have had to do that if—”
“I would. I promised myself the blighter some time ago.”
Daniel looked up at that. “Yes, you did, didn’t you? The soldier at work. I wish I had your singleness of purpose.”
“Those swine murdered my men at Jacobsdal. They all knew about the sabotage, the bodies in the sinkhole. The three of them can go straight to hell. And we have to get to the house.”
“Right,” said Daniel, and then, “I’m sorry, but you do realise we’ve lost.”
“We can try.”
“We can’t. You heard Armstrong. The photographs are already on their way to wherever it may be, we don’t know because I killed them. I’ve ruined you. I’m sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Curtis grabbed him, pulling him close. Daniel dropped his head, not meeting his eyes.
“Look at me. It’s not your fault. Christ, man, you’ve done what you could.”
“To destroy your life.”
“No.” Curtis wrapped his arms round him, not caring if anyone might be there to see. It hardly mattered now. “There was nothing there to destroy.”
“Say that again from a gaol cell,” Daniel muttered into his chest.
“It won’t come to that. We may have to leave the country in a hurry, that’s all.”
Daniel looked up, his face drawn with pain, eyes glistening bright. “It’s not all. Your family. Your position.”
Curtis kissed him, gently but firmly. “You faced all that. So can I. No guilt, it doesn’t suit you.”
“It ought to.” Daniel pulled away and hurried on towards the house. “I have made such a damned mess of this. Vaizey’s going to murder me, and so he should.”
“Nonsense.”
“I’ve lost the evidence of who’s betraying their country, provided a trio of corpses to be explained away, and ruined his nephew. He’s going to murder me.”
Put like that, it did seem likely. “Come on,” Curtis said as they crunched up the gravel in front of the house, in step. “Let’s face this.”
Chapter Fifteen
The front door stood open. In the otherwise empty hallway, Lambdon lay unconscious on the floor with blood trickling sluggishly from a nasty wound in his scalp.
“What the—”
“Ssh.” Curtis frowned, looking around, then took a few long strides to the library door.
“Let me,” he mouthed, lifting his revolver and indicating the other man should stay behind him.
Daniel stepped back. Curtis took a breath, elbowed the door open, swung into the room and stopped dead, with the muzzle of a Holland and Holland shotgun pointing directly in his face.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Patricia Merton, lowering the gun. “You’ve been a while, I must say.”
Curtis stared at her. Then he stared at the other two occupants of the room: the servant Wesley, kneeling, face to the wall and hands behind back; and Fenella Carruth, holding a pretty little Colt ladies’ revolver with obvious competence. He gaped at her. She gave him a sparkling smile.
Beside him, Daniel made a strangled noise, and pointed at the open storeroom door. Curtis could see papers and photographs spilled on the floor.
“Are you after that business?” asked Pat, jerking her head. “It’s all perfectly safe, if that’s what you were wondering.”
Daniel bolted into the storeroom. Curtis managed, “How?”
“Well, we heard them,” Pat said.
“Plotting,” put in Fen with relish.
“Lots of tramping around this morning and a great deal of subdued shouting. It sounded very like something had gone wrong, so when the Armstrongs left, we thought we might take a look. And there were this precious fellow and the atrocious Mr. Lambdon lighting the fire and taking out piles of papers and photographs, which I realised must be all that nastiness you told me about. And I thought, well, I doubt Archie wants
that
destroyed before your friends arrive. So we asked them to stop.”
“We asked very nicely,” said Fen, tipping her gun.
“Did they burn anything at all?” Daniel called from the storeroom.
“No, they’d only just started to set the fire. It’s all there. Well, almost. Fen, dear?”
Fen turned away and tugged something out of her bodice. She came over and handed an envelope to Curtis.
“You should have these,” she said. “We’d have burned them if they’d got the fire lit.”
Curtis pulled out the contents and glanced down at the top photograph—himself, Daniel; he flinched away from the explicitness of it. He turned the sheaf over hastily, not knowing what to say to Fen.
She gazed up at him, serious for a second, and then quite suddenly stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
“You don’t need to worry about us, Archie. I know it’s harder for you, of course, but—well, it’s surprising what one can get away with, in society, you know. People notice far less than one might fear. We’ve found it so, haven’t we, Pat?”
Pat rolled her eyes and gave Fen a look of fond exasperation. Curtis looked from one woman to the other. Realisation dawned.
Fen twinkled roguishly and leaned in to whisper, “And I do admire your taste. I’ve always said, Mr. da Silva is
terribly
handsome.”
“Fenella Carruth!” said Pat. “Leave that poor man alone.”
“Archie, are you holding what I think you are?” demanded Daniel from the storeroom door.
“Thank the ladies.” Curtis gave a helpless shrug.
Daniel looked at him for a second, then fell dramatically to his knees, arms wide. “Miss Merton, Miss Carruth. Both or either. Marry me.”
“What an appalling offer,” said Pat, as Fen went off into peals of laughter. “And get up, you absurd creature, that’s motorcars I hear on the drive.”
Curtis fastened his suitcase. He had packed it himself; the house was in chaos, and in any case, he did not want any servants to see his bloodstained clothes, let alone those dreadful photographs. They were safely stowed at the bottom of his Gladstone bag, ready to be burned when he had a chance. He didn’t intend to lose sight of the bag till then.