The Arrangement (39 page)

He came after me with the speed of a cat, and before I quite knew what had happened, his hands were on my shoulders.

I pulled back sharply but he didn’t let go.

“Release me this instant!” I said indignantly.

He shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry, Gail. Believe me, I’m really sorry. But I simply can’t let you live. You’re too much of a threat to me, you see.” The look he gave me was bizarrely regretful. “I’m very much afraid that I’m going to have to kill you.”

My mouth dropped open. His fingers were biting into my shoulders.

“What are you talking about, John? What kind of threat can I possibly be to you? Are you insane?”

“No, I’m not insane. I saw right from the start that Raoul’s feelings for you were different from anything I had ever seen him show before. Ginny saw it too.” He gave a resigned shake of his head. “Don’t you see? I simply can’t take the chance that he will marry you. I can’t lose my position as his heir. I love Savile too much to lose it.” The brown eyes that held mine did not show the slightest trace of remorse. “And if I have to kill to keep it, I will,” he said.

“Raoul isn’t going to marry me!” I said in astonishment. “I am the daughter of an undistinguished country doctor, John! You are insane to think that the Earl of Savile would dream of marrying a woman whose social status is so far beneath his.”

Once more came that slow shake of the head. “Who can be sure what Raoul will do? He is certainly besotted with you, Gail, and I simply can’t take the chance of you producing any new heirs to stand between me and my rightful inheritance. I’ve slaved for Savile since I was eighteen years old. I deserve to inherit after Raoul, and I’m going to make very certain that I do.”

My initial stunned amazement was turning into panic. I tried to pull away from him again, but his fingers tightened cruelly on my shoulders.

I would fight him if I had to, but I knew that my chances of outmuscling him were slender. I had to try to talk some sense into him.

I said reasonably, “Raoul is not very much older than you are yourself, John. There is nothing to say that he won’t continue as Savile’s master for the next forty years.”

John smiled and said softly, “Do you know, somehow I rather doubt that he will.”

My blood turned to ice.

Think, Gail,
I told myself desperately.
Think.

I said, “If you shoot me, someone is certain to suspect you, John. Someone has to have seen your phaeton drive in the front gate.”

“But I’m not going to shoot you, sweetheart,” he returned.

I wondered how I could ever have found his smile pleasant.

“I have a much more clever plan than that,” he said.

Delayed realization burst upon me. “Nicky was never the target of those attacks at Savile, was he? It was me all along! Raoul thought it was Mr. Cole trying to kill Nicky because he was George’s true heir, but it wasn’t!”

John looked genuinely amused. “That’s right. The broken bridge was aimed at you and Raoul both, and if it hadn’t been for that stupid horse of Raoul’s, it would have succeeded. Then the groom I bribed gave the nightshade to Nicky’s pony by mistake instead of your mare. Another piece of bad luck on my part.”

“What about the death of Johnny Wester?” I asked grimly.

“For two days you had been the extra person in the woods playing that game with the boys, Gail. When I heard the voices of Charlie, Theo, and Nicky, but not the voice of the fourth person, I assumed it was you. I had no idea that your place had been taken by the Wester boy.” He shrugged. “My bad luck again.”

“It was Johnny Wester’s bad luck, too,” I said bitterly.

“I suppose,” John said indifferently.

It was his indifference that frightened me most. He was still holding my shoulders and his body was very close to mine. I shivered with a mixture of fear and repulsion and asked, “If you’re not going to shoot me, what are you going to do instead?” I raised my chin and tried to inject a note of scorn into my voice. “It had better be more effective than your previous attempts, or you will be in trouble.”

“Actually, I’m rather pleased with what I have come up with,” he said with quite a charming smile. “I’m going to drown you.”

My whole body jerked away from him. His fingers tightened again.
“What?”
I said.

“Yes. I plan to hit you over the head and then hold you facedown in the stream until you drown. When you’re found, people will think that you were climbing down to the stream to pick some flowers—I will thoughtfully supply the flowers, Gail—and that you tripped, hit your head on a rock, fell into the stream, and drowned.”

I stared at him in horror.

“What do you think of that, eh?” he asked, as if he genuinely wanted my opinion.

“You’re insane,” I said.

“Not insane, just ruthless,” came the reply. “Now, my love, if you will come along with me, let us move closer to that delightful little stream.”

The time to fight him was at hand and I began to struggle in earnest, trying to pull away and to bite him and kick him at the same time. I screamed as we struggled. He moved me toward the stream and I screamed and screamed again.

He laughed as he evaded my kicking feet. Finally he grabbed my arm and twisted it up behind my back. Excruciating pain shot all through my upper body. I was breathing in deep, racking gasps of air.

Nicky,
I thought in despair.
Thank God I can count on Raoul to take care of Nicky.

And then, unbelievably, Raoul’s voice came from the other side of the clearing. “Let her go, John, before I am forced to shoot you.”

We stopped struggling and stared across the clearing to the man who was standing next to the parked phaeton. We had not heard him come because of my screaming.

John pulled my arm higher and the pain ratcheted through me.

Raoul raised his pistol, which glinted in the sunlight. “There is one sure way to make you let her go and I can assure you that I shall have no hesitation about taking it. The top of your head is well above Gail’s; it’s not a target I am likely to miss.”

I heard John’s breath hiss as he inhaled sharply and then let it out. Slowly, reluctantly, he let go his grip on my arm. Then he dropped it completely and I ran across the clearing to stand in Raoul’s protective shadow.

He spared me a quick, worried look. “Are you all right, Gail?”

I was rubbing my sore shoulder. Panting, I said, “Yes, now that you are here.”

Raoul’s eyes went back to his cousin.

“How
are you here?” John asked. He was very white. “You could not have discovered I was gone until Tuesday evening.”

“I didn’t, but as soon as I did, I had my own horses put to,” Raoul replied.

It was now Wednesday noon.

I said breathlessly, “Good heavens, did you drive through the night?”

“Yes,” came the brief reply.

I stared up at him. The line of his mouth was harder than I had ever seen it.

“Raoul, did you
suspect
that John was involved in this?”

Raoul’s eyes were trained on his cousin, and the hand that held the gun on him was rock steady. “I wasn’t sure, Gail. I began to wonder after I learned about Cole trying to buy that page from the marriage register. If he had managed to get his hands on that, then there was really no need for him to kill Nicky. And also there was the question of how a stranger like Cole would go about having the bridge tampered with and the pony poisoned. Those kinds of things seemed to indicate someone who was more familiar with the estate and the estate’s personnel than Albert Cole could ever be.”

I was having a hard time digesting this completely unexpected information.

“But you told me you thought the attacks were directed at Nicky,” I said.

“I did, at first. But then, when the truth about Deborah’s marriage emerged, I began to change my mind. Even if Nicky were dead, Cole’s grandchildren would not have inherited Devane Hall, Gail. It would have gone to Roger. So what was the motivation for Cole to want Nicky dead?”

“You thought John might be trying to kill me?” I asked faintly.

“Suffice it to say, I was concerned enough to want to get you away from Savile before John returned,” Raoul said.

So
that
was the reason for Raoul’s hustling me to Devane Hall so quickly, I thought in wonder.

Raoul shot me a quick look. “I don’t think anything in my life had frightened me more than learning that John had left Savile yesterday morning. I drove like a demon out of hell all night, praying that I would get here in time.”

“However did you know that we were here in the woods?” I asked.

“One of the gardeners saw the phaeton come this way, and then I heard you screaming. You have a good pair of lungs, sweetheart.”

“Thank God,” I said fervently.

“Yes.” He turned back to John. “I might have suspected you sooner if it hadn’t taken me so long to figure out a motive for you.”

A shaft of sunlight was touching John’s brown hair, bringing out the hidden Melville gold. He looked slender and forlorn and no threat to anyone. It amazed me.

“But you figured it out at last?” he asked.

“Yes. I finally did.”

Oh God,
I thought.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to hear Raoul tell John that he was insane to think that he might ever dream of marrying me.

Raoul said, “You saw how I felt about Gail, didn’t you, and you were afraid that I would marry her and you would lose your place as my heir?”

The expression on John’s face was stark, but not as stark as I’m sure the expression was on mine.

“Yes,” John said. “That’s what I feared.”

Raoul nodded. His gun never wavered. “Well,” he said pleasantly, “what are we going to do with you, John?”

I finally realized that I wasn’t breathing. I took one deep, conscious breath, and then another.

I tried to focus my mind on what was happening between the two men.

“You’re not going to turn me in to the local magistrate?” John was asking hopefully.

That got my attention.

“Are you insane?” I demanded of Raoul. “This man is a murderer. The Wester boy’s parents deserve to know that the man who killed their child is going to be punished.”

“I was thinking of the scandal, Gail,” Raoul replied. He gave me a quick, golden-eyed look. “This is the sort of thing that one likes to keep within the family.”

I was suddenly and completely furious. “Well, you are not going to keep this dirty little secret in the family because I won’t let you! This…scum…” I gave John a look of utter loathing, “killed a little boy. And let me tell you, my lord, that I don’t care if that child is only a tenant’s brat. His life is as precious to his parents as Nicky’s life is to me. So if you don’t go to the magistrate about John, then I will.” I put my hands on my hips. “The rest of us don’t live in the Middle Ages anymore, my lord, even if you do!”

I glared at him.

“I don’t either, sweetheart,” he replied. “But we don’t live in a perfect world, either. There is no proof that John killed Johnny Wester, and if the case ever went to trial there is a reasonable chance that he would be acquitted.”

“He confessed to
me
that he killed Johnny,” I said.

Raoul was shaking his head. “I don’t want a trial, Gail,” he said implacably. “I don’t want a public exposure of Harriet’s illegal marriage; I don’t want scandalous speculation about the fate of her ‘poor bastard children’; I don’t want you to be forced to testify in front of the press; and I don’t want to face heart-wrenching stories about Nicky as the ‘lost heir’ every morning when I read my newspaper over the breakfast table.”

He shot me another quick look. “I know you want vengeance, sweetheart, but to my mind the disadvantages of forcing John to stand trial outweigh the advantages.”

John said, “Raoul is right. That is precisely what will happen, Gail. And in the end, I’ll probably be acquitted anyway.”

“I did not say that you would probably be acquitted, John. I said there was a reasonable chance that you would be acquitted,” Raoul said.

“John has to pay for Johnny Wester,” I said stubbornly.

“I agree,” Raoul said. “And that is what we are going to do.”

Both John and I gazed at him with fascination.

Raoul put away his gun, reached into his pocket, and took out a packet. “This is a ticket on the boat
from
Dover to Calais, along with enough money to enable you to live without starving for a six-month period. After that, John, you will be on your own.”

John scowled. “What do you mean? Are you saying that you are banishing me from England?”

“That is exactly what I am saying, John. I don’t want you in England, I don’t want you near my family. In fact, I never wish to see you again.”

I thought that the bleak note in Raoul’s voice as he said that last sentence was one of the most painful sounds I had ever heard. I thought of his telling me how he and John had played together as boys, how they had slept out in the cottage and fished for their breakfast in the morning.

What must it be doing to him, to know that this cousin, whom he had loved, had wanted to kill him?

I thought of an objection. “How are you going to know if he comes back, Raoul? You can’t keep people posted at all the ports, for heaven’s sake.”

“I hear things,” Raoul said. “Don’t I, John?”

“Yes,” John said with difficulty.

“Perhaps,” Raoul said, “in fifteen or so years, when Gail and I have a handful of children to stand between you and Savile, perhaps then you may come back. But not until then, John. Not until then.”

At first Raoul’s words sailed right over my head. I was standing beside him, looking at John and fretting about the solution that Raoul had come up with, and the full ramifications of what he had said didn’t strike me right away.

Then his words repeated themselves in my brain:

“In fifteen or so years, when Gail and I have a handful of children to stand between you and Savile, perhaps then you may come back.”

I felt my back go rigid. Had I heard correctly? Could that possibly mean what it sounded like?