Military Romance Collection: Contemporary Soldier Alpha Male Romance (146 page)

Ruby had not taken her eyes from Logan.  “Yes,” she said, at last.  “I do.”

This admission took Logan by surprise, almost as much as the blow to his head.  He blinked, his vision still swimming a bit.  Did she mean it, or was she saying it just to play along with Bolt?

“Logan,” Ruby called out to him, a note of panic in her voice.  “Are you all right?”

Bolt let out a laugh.  “Well, now,” he said.  “This is quite interesting!  Here she is, cast in the role of damsel in distress, and yet all she can do is ask about
you
.”

Ruby frowned.  “’Damsel in distress?’” she repeated indignantly, twisting her head slightly to look back at Bolt.  She looked at Logan again.  “Well.  It seems apparent he knows nothing about me.  Which should work to my favor.” 

Without warning, Ruby brought the heel of her boot down – hard – on Bolt’s foot.  That caught him by surprise just enough to make him lose his grip on the yew staff.  As it clattered to the floor and rolled away, Ruby swung around, her fist connecting soundly with Bolt’s eye.  “This,” she growled, pulling her fist back and striking him twice more, “is why I like to attend…boxing matches!”

In the midst of the scuffle and the punches, the gun went off again.  Ruby shrieked and fell to the floor, clutching at the side of her head.

“Ruby!” Logan roared.  Ignoring the sick, lurching sensation in his head, he dove for the club and jumped up, wielding it in both fists like a broad sword.  Bolt started to take aim at him with the pistol but Logan struck his shoulder with the stick.  Bolt cried out.  He dropped the gun.  Logan took another swing.  This time, Bolt caught the rod.  The two men became locked in a fierce battle of strength, each trying to gain control over the length of wood.

The click of a pistol hammer being cocked made them both go still – Bolt even more so, his eyes wide.  Logan glanced down between them.  He saw Ruby, on her knees, the gun in both hands…with the barrel pressed right up against Bolt’s groin. 

“There’s your ‘damsel in distress’ for you,” Ruby announced, her voice very loud, which led Logan to believe that she had screamed because the gun had gone off so close to her ear.  “Inspector Tummond, I do believe this man needs to be arrested.”  Ruby caught Logan’s eye and winked. 

Logan smiled.  “You heard the lady,” he said, looking up at Bolt again.  “Oliver Bolt, I hereby place you under arrest for the murder of Professor Cornelius Chetham, Thomas Cotton, and two orphaned boys known only as ‘James’ and ‘Paul.’”  He wrenched the club away from Bolt, who had no recourse but to relinquish it.  Logan’s smile faded, replaced by a grimace.  “May God forgive you for what you have done, Oliver,” he murmured.

“God,” Bolt replied, reverting to his earlier lack of emotion, “can go to Hell.”

***

Because none of Bolt’s victims could accuse him, Logan had volunteered to stand in the place of the defendants at the Assizes to decide the killer’s fate.  The two men stared at one another across the courtroom as the jury and two Justices of the Peace came to a swift decision: death by hanging. 

At one point during the proceedings, Logan decided to make a confession.  “I cannot stand here and accuse Oliver Bolt of these crimes without feeling some responsibility, myself.  Twenty years ago, as a young lad, I was acquainted with Mr. Bolt through our parish church in Killarney, where he served the Altar.”  Logan paused, lightly tapping his fingertips on the bannisters while taking careful consideration with his words.  He looked over at Bolt.  “That particular Easter, we had both lost our faith in God and the church.  While I had retreated from the darkness, a coward, he had no course but to continue on his own, and face whatever demons lay therein, alone.  If I could turn back the hands of time, I would take his hand and pull him back, so he would not have to make that journey…a journey which led him to this place, where he stands today, transformed into a killer by the horrors he had been forced to bear witness.”  He shook his head and swallowed.  “I am truly sorry, Oliver,” he said.  “But like you, I was just a frightened child.”

One of the justices cleared his throat.  “Inspector Tummond,” he said, and Logan turned back to him.  “What you did or did not do as a child has no standing in these matters.  It is the opinion of this court that the accused, Mr. Bolt, acted of his own accord, and did thus deliberately connive and carry out heinous crimes upon three children.”

Logan could almost hear Ruby’s words echoing in his mind, telling him the same thing. 
‘What could you have done?  You were just a boy, yourself.’

“Furthermore,” the justice went on, “he has confessed to the murder of the parish priest, Father Joseph, and he is also guilty of the death of Cornelius Chetham, Professor of Ancient History Studies at University of Kent.  He and he alone is to be held accountable for taking the lives of these five individuals.  Any culpability you feel in the matter is your own, and may God have mercy on your soul as He must also with Mr. Bolt.”

With the banging of the hammer, the trial ended.  Logan watched as they took Bolt away, back to the cell where he would sit and await his sentence. 

The square around the gallows had begun to fill up early that morning.  At noon, Bolt was scheduled to swing.  Logan decided to visit him one last time, and he told Ruby so.  “I need to speak to him,” he said.  “I need to know what makes a man carry that much hatred and resentment in his heart, that he would take innocent lives.”  He looked into her eyes.  “He killed Father Joseph outright.  Why would he not just come and do the same, to me?”

“I want to come with you,” Ruby said.  “I have a few questions of my own.”

An hour before the execution, they arrived at the prison.  A guard escorted them to Oliver Bolt’s cell.  He said on the bench inside the small, barren space, dressed in a pair of rough wool trousers and a shirt that looked to be two sizes too big on his frame.  Logan grimaced.  A tailored suit or rags – it hardly mattered, now, considering how Bolt would not be alive much longer. 

Bolt looked up at them as they stood on the other side of the bars.  He smiled.  “Come to watch me through the door again?” he asked Logan.

For his part, Logan did not wince visibly.  “I came to offer a final apology,” he said.  “One which I know you will never accept, but I feel it must be said – only this time, I am not saying it for you.  I apologize to the lives you ended, out of your misdirected rage.  Most men would target the one who caused them injury.” He shook his head and lifted his brows.  “But killing Father Joseph?  That was not enough.  You had built up so much hate for my in your heart, and now I realize it was because I ran…and you could not.  Had it been me taking Father Joseph’s punishment, and you looking through the door, you cannot tell me honestly that you would have come to my rescue.  You would have fled, just as I did, scared and confused and embarrassed by what you had witnessed.  You would have been just as haunted, seeing that image every time you closed your eyes.  You would have questioned everything you had ever been taught to believe, and to trust, and you would have fled from it, all of it.”  A wan smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.  “But that
is
what you did.  It’s what we
both
did.  I acknowledge that what happened to you was worse, but the blame I have placed upon myself could never match what you have tried to add to it in these last two months.”  He shrugged.  “And yet, I will shoulder it.  I will not mourn for Father Joseph, but I will mourn the others – James, and Paul, and Thomas, and Professor Chetham.”

“Will you mourn me?” Bolt asked, almost taunting.

Logan shook his head.  “I already did,” he said.  “Years ago.  But I cannot mourn for someone who would take the lives of innocents as a means of seeking revenge.  Killing those boys was an act of cowardice, on
your
part.  If you had an issue with me, you should have come to
me
.”

“There is something I wish to ask,” Ruby ventured, once Logan had finished.  Bolt’s head shifted, his gaze fixing upon her.  “Why would you kill so many children, and in such an elaborate, methodical manner?  What motivated you to choose so many intricate symbols?  Would it not have been easier and more effective to simply use one person to make your point?”

Bolt raised an eyebrow at her.  A chuckle built in his chest and bubbled up his throat, tumbling from his lips as his body swayed and shook in amusement.  “Why?” he echoed.  “Is it not obvious? 
I am an actor,
my dear, and the purpose of an actor is to prove he can deliver the best performance you will ever see, ensuring that no other after him will ever be able to duplicate it, and would be remembered forever.”  He rose from the bench and slowly approached the bars.“Your so-called ‘Ripper’ may have instilled terror, but he was sloppy.  He was nothing more than a barbaric, drunken butcher preying on cheap tarts.  I want to show him, and everyone else, how to present a series of murders in a
sophisticated
manner, to demonstrate that one can kill
intelligently.
”

“Yes, you are quite that,” Ruby said, with a slight smile.  “I must say, I
do
admire your cleverness.”

Logan looked at her, perplexed by the praise she continued to heap upon Bolt. 
‘Sometimes you simply have to humor the madman,’
she had once said.  Remembering this, his mouth twitched. 
Oh, Miss Waterbrook,
he thought,
you do so love your games.

“It is quite clear that you went about it like an actor rehearsing a play,” Ruby went on,“before you took your performance to the public.  You did exactly what you set out to achieve: you gave your audience the thrills they deserved.  Bravo, sir.  You should be commended.  However…”  She lifted a hand, one finger raised for attention.  “There remains one
more
question: what shall you do for your
encore
?  The audience is on its feet, you have its attention – how will you leave them, today?”

“Why, I shall do what every good actor does – I shall leave them wanting more.  And mark my words: they
will
want more.  You can see it with every newspaper sold in the streets.  Everyone loves a good murder, but a series of murders excites them even more.  When I am gone, they will ache for more.  Before long, there will be others who will try their hand.  They will follow in my footsteps and try to top my performance, inspired by what I have done.  It will go on and on, well into the next century.  And why?  Because human kind is bloodthirsty.  We are all, deep down,
monsters
.”

“Time to take your final bow,” Logan said.  He nodded to the constable outside the cell, who unlocked and opened the door.  Bolt stood and with head held high, walked out with his police escort.  Ruby and Logan followed.  The procession led out to the courtyard where a crowd had gathered around the gallows. 

Bolt paused.  “Quite the turnout, come to see me dance from the hangman’s rope.”  Looking back over his shoulder, he smiled at Logan and Ruby.  “I shan’t disappoint them.”

***

Oliver Bolt was dead.  Knowing this lifted a great weight from Logan’s soul.  He would, as Bolt had promised, carry some of the responsibility for the deaths of those children – and Professor Chetham – but not because of something he had done as a boy.  If he had known about the first two boys, he might have been able to prevent Thomas Cotton from being killed.  If he had not involved Chetham, he would still be alive. 

“Stop that,” Ruby chastised him.

Logan blinked and looked down at her, walking along beside him through Hyde Park with her hand looped through the crook of his elbow.  “Stop what?”

“Brooding,” she said.  She smiled.  “You get this look on your face when you think too much about things over which you have no control.” 

“Like you?” Logan teased mildly.  “You took quite a chance at the Temple Church, when you decided to engage Bolt in fisticuffs.”

She snorted.  “It was hardly an engagement,” she said.  “He never once tried to retaliate.”

“He had a
loadedgun
pointed at your
head
,” Logan reminded her. 

“A mere trifle.”

Logan growled in frustration.  Abruptly, he stopped walking, turned around and faced Ruby directly.  “I have a question to ask you,” he said.  “And I need an answer, right now.”

She glanced around, looking a bit perplexed, but otherwise smiled.  “All right….”

“When Bolt asked you if you loved me, and you said ‘yes.’”  Logan looked into her warm brown eyes.  “Was that the truth?  Did you really mean it?”

“Well, that depends.”  She beamed at him.  “Did you mean what
you
said, just before that?”

Logan frowned, confused as to why she would answer his question with one of her own.  “Of course,” he said.

“Then I suppose I did, as well.  Mean what I said.”

He felt an odd flutter in his breast.  “Then…you love me?”

“I believe I just said I did.  Again.”

“As someone you might consider loving for the rest of your life?” Logan pressed.

“Well,” she said thoughtfully.  “We
do
work well together, darling.  You make life quite an adventure, and I like that.”

“As do I.”  Logan hesitated.  “You just called me ‘darling.’”

“Did I?  Ah, I suppose it must have something to do with all the recent excitement, the thrill of the chase, solving mysteries together…”  She pursed her lips and laid a gloved fingertip against her cheek.  “I wonder what else we could do together with equal success.”

Now he could feel heat radiating throughout his body, as warm as the mid-August sunshine beating down upon his neck.  “We could always explore the possibilities.”

Ruby nodded.  “There’s a boxing match tomorrow night,” she said suddenly.  “Care to go?”

“Only if you promise not to dress up as a man,” Logan said.  “Things might get a bit
uncomfortable
if I should suddenly give in to the impulse to call
you
‘darling.’”

“You need to learn how to control your impulses, Inspector.”

“Only until we’re married,” he said.

Ruby raised her eyebrows at him.  “Inspector Tummond!  Did you just ask me for my hand?”

“I suppose I could be a bit more eloquent about it,”Logan said.  Drawing her under a cascade of wisteria blossoms, hidden from any onlookers, he turned to face her again.  “Ruby Waterbrook, would you be as kind as to do me the honor of becoming my wife, and continue to solve
all
of life’s mysteries with me?”

Ruby grinned.  “I would consider it an honor,” she replied, “and the adventure of a lifetime, as well.”

Taking her face in his hands, Logan leaned down and kissed her on the lips for the first time.  A moment later he heard a clatter – her parasol dropping to the stone path.  Her palms slid up his chest until her arms circled his neck, and he felt her press up against him, soft in all the right places.  His spirits soared.  Somehow, he had managed to win the love of this amazing, beautiful woman.  He would always admire her for her brilliant mind, and would spend the rest of his days making certain she never regretted giving him her heart.

***

                            THE END