The Elusive Flame (54 page)

Cerynise gasped. “You mean you…she didn’t…?”

“No, she didn’t die of natural causes,” Alistair finished for her with a one-sided sneer. “I was tired of having to argue and beg for every farthing she threw me, so I took matters into my own hands and”—he chortled crazily—“put the old hag out of her misery. I doubt that she even
knew what I had done. Certainly that stupid doctor of hers didn’t.”

“Oh, Alistair, how could you?” Cerynise moaned.

“Actually, it was all very easy,” he replied smugly. “All I had to do was think how rich I would be once Lydia passed on. I thought everything would be wonderful then, until I found out what the old hag had done.”

Cerynise’s mind reeled. No wonder he had been in such a hurry to get her out of Lydia’s house…at least until he realized there was a new will. “That’s why you came to fetch me from the
Audacious
.” She was just beginning to understand the reasoning behind his attempts to take her captive. “By that time, you had discovered the truth and had plans to kill me as soon as it became convenient.”

Alistair tried to nod, but the agony that the movement caused made him tremble uncontrollably. Another moment passed before he could continue. “I wanted to kill you. It would have been nice and tidy before you married the captain. Without a legal heir to your name, all of Lydia’s wealth would have come to me.” He wheezed in pain. “When your husband waved those marriage papers in front of me, I thought all was lost. But I didn’t give up, not me. I came after you. We were intending to take you back to England, ensconce you in Lydia’s house and then, after assuming legal guardianship over you, render you feeble and incapable of communication with strong potions. Of course, we’d have forced you to sign a will which would have left me everything in the event of your death. Oh, we’d have allowed you to have visitors for a while, some of Lydia’s friends who knew you.…We’d have even appointed a nurse to care for you so no one would have suspected that we were feeding you slowacting poison. Then we’d have buried you.”

“Don’t you think my husband would have come after me?”

“Oh, we were willing to pay for his death, someone who’d have made it look like an accident before the
bloody bastard set foot on English soil. People wouldn’t have grieved his passing overmuch.”

“You planned it all,” Cerynise mused aloud. “Yet, except for Lydia’s death, none of it will ever come to pass now.”

Alistair had already come to that conclusion himself, but he was not above smirking at the power he held over her now. “At least you’ll be dead.”

“Did Rudd help you kill Lydia?” she queried, realizing there might have been a viable reason for her not trusting the solicitor.

“He didn’t know anything about that. In fact, he only became an accessory after I killed another. As yet, he isn’t aware that I poisoned Lydia, but he had no choice but to help me when I offered him a third of the inheritance. You see, he needed the money as desperately as I did. He’s quite partial to his brandy and other things that cost money. Or perhaps he was once. Do you really think you killed him?”

“He won’t be helping you, if that’s what you mean.” Cerynise tilted her head curiously. “I heard you say that you had stabbed Wilson because he was trying to kill me. Was that really the reason?”

“A necessity, Rudd said,” Alistair admitted. “The tar was being paid to kill you to seek revenge on your husband.”

“You say he was being paid, yet Wilson might have thought that he had enough cause to retaliate on his own…without inducement.”

Alistair grimaced again at the pain he was suffering and staggered slightly before he could manage to bring himself in line. “It’s not unheard of for a man to kill for revenge, but in this case, he not only had an accomplice, but there was someone else who had funds enough to guarantee their enthusiasm for such a chore.”

“Do you know their names?”

“The man I heard advising Wilson to lay low for a time was Frank Lester. It seemed they both came out here
one night to do you in. Frank was boasting about throwing you down the stairs at your husband.”

“But why would they have been so careless to talk where you could overhear?”

Alistair winced, wishing at the moment that he had a whole vat of brandy to drink. It would probably be the only thing that would ease his discomfort. “We had a room right next door to them at an inn, a shabby one at best, but the only one we could afford. We heard voices coming through a vent in the chimney in our room and paused to listen. Here I was, newly arrived in Charleston, and the first person I heard those two discussing was you. I thought for a moment my imagination was getting out of hand.”

“I’ve heard it said that Wilson was wary of strangers since there were so many people looking for him. How did you manage to get close enough to knife him?”

His blistered lips moved minutely, trying to form a sneer. “He had seen us getting off a ship from England, and when we asked him about an inn, he told us where he was staying. Of course, he was cautious of others seeing his face, so he kept to the shadows most of the time or hid out in his room. After we overheard him talking to Frank Lester, we approached him on the dock in the guise of needing more directions. By that time, he thought nothing of talking to us, since he knew we were Englishmen and had no dealings with the local inhabitants.”

“Are you planning on murdering me by some other devious means or do you intend to kill me with that?” Cerynise asked, indicating the pistol he was holding.

“I guess it really doesn’t matter now how I kill you. Considering my present condition and without Rudd to help me, taking you back to England seems rather farfetched. I can only hope that after killing you here, I’ll be able to collect on some of the inheritance before your husband sends investigators to England to search me out.”

Alistair winced and raised his weapon, aiming it toward
her heart. “I can’t say that it’s been a pleasure knowing you.”

Cerynise had already cocked the pistol in her pocket for the sake of safety some time ago, but she couldn’t foresee having enough time to draw it forth from her skirt before she fired. Her finger tightened on the trigger, but in the next instant the front door was flung wide, and Beau swept in, clothed in rain gear. Alistair glanced around in sharp surprise and immediately swept his own weapon around and centered its bore on the other man’s chest.

“Nooo!” Cerynise shrieked, pulling back the firing mechanism in swift reaction. The recoil of the pistol knocked her backward, but in a quick, hazy glimpse she saw blood fly outward from Alistair’s chest as the lead shot burrowed deep. He seemed to convulse forward, and a wry smile twisted across his scorched lips as he peered up at Beau, who, surprised by it all, could only look death in the face as the man centered the weapon on his chest.

Cerynise screamed again, her heart all but stopping. It was a fleeting moment of terrifying, wrenching suspense as the hammer fell. A deafening explosion of sound was fully expected by all three, but there was only a dull, rasping click of metal.

Alistair stared down in amazement at the pistol. “Should’ve known,” he mumbled as the weapon toppled from his loosening fingers. “Got wet, it did.” He slumped to his knees and stared down at his rapidly reddening chest. Then he canted his head toward Cerynise, and his unruly lips curved awkwardly. “Should’ve taken Rudd’s advice and left before you kilt me.…You were always far luckier than I.…” He collapsed forward to the floor and, after a choked gasp, breathed his last.

Cerynise leapt across his still form and, despite her husband’s sodden gear, threw herself into his opening arms, sobbing harshly in relief as he clasped her hard against him. “Oh, Beau! I thought he was going to kill you! I didn’t know his gun wouldn’t fire!”

“Rest easy, madam,” her husband gently soothed. “His intent was to kill me, and he paid for it with his life.”

“He killed Wilson and Lydia…and others,” she gasped through her sobs. “He told me so.”

Beau drew back and searched her face. Noticing that her gown had become soaked by his rain gear, he began to shrug out of it. “Did he kill Wilson because he was afraid that the tar would talk?”

Cerynise shook her head, trying to wipe away her tears with the back of a hand. “No, not at all. As farfetched as it might seem, Alistair killed him because Wilson was trying to murder me. Wilson also had an accomplice…that man whom you talked to Germaine about the night of Suzanne’s engagement party…Frank Lester. He and Wilson were being paid to kill me for someone who wanted to exact revenge on you.”

“Germaine,” Beau muttered with sudden certainty. “She all but threatened us that night on the porch. I didn’t take it much to heart at the time, but I might have underestimated her.”

Cerynise glanced down at Alistair and shivered as she averted her face. “What are you going to do about her?”

“Leave her to the sheriff,” Beau answered without pause, laying his raincoat over the dead man. “I don’t ever want to see that bitch’s face again.”

He went back to close the front door and, taking Cerynise’s hand, pulled her with him as he stepped around the body and moved into the central hall. The house was dark except for a hurricane lamp burning on a table, and though he glanced around and peered into the shadows beyond the meager light, he saw no evidence of any of the servants. “But what happened to the men? Did Alistair kill them, too?”

“No, thank heavens,” Cerynise replied. “Moon and Thomas are presently locked up in the carriage house, and Jasper and Cooper are in the pantry.…”

“In the pantry?” Beau queried in surprise, taking up the lamp. “Did Alistair put them in there?”

“Aye. Rudd helped him do it, but the last time I looked, Jasper and Cooper were both unconscious.”

When they came to the remains of the vase and flowers scattered over the stairs and the marble floor, Beau paused, lifting the light higher. “But what happened here?”

Cerynise glanced around at the mess she had caused. “Well, I had to do something to thwart Alistair’s devious plans.”

Beau cocked his head as he awaited her answer. “What did you do
exactly
?”

She lifted her slender shoulders, only just now realizing how costly the container had been. Perhaps it, too, should have been put in the linen closet. “I dropped the vase down upon Alistair from above. It cut off his ear.”

Beau chuckled in rueful amusement. “Cut off his ear?”

“Alistair was quite perturbed about it. Threatened to sever mine with a saw.”

“Well, the way he looked when I came in, I thought he had already ventured into hell and somehow managed to come back,” her husband remarked, unable to squelch a grin. “What else did you do to him? Roast him over an open fire?”

“I’m afraid I threw a bookend at the lamp he was carrying. It broke and the oil spilled over him and he caught fire. He ran outside to douse the flames, but he wasn’t entirely the same when he came back. Neither was Rudd.”

Beau could only stare at his wife in amazement. He hadn’t known her capable of such tactics, but he was immensely relieved that she had had the grit and fortitude to prevent the culprits from doing their mischief and that she was now safe. “Where is Rudd?”

“He’s in the kitchen.” Cerynise bit her lip worriedly, fretting over what she had been forced to do. “I hope I didn’t kill him, but I had to make sure that he’d remain unconscious while I dealt with Alistair.”

Beau’s amazement was advancing by leaps and bounds. “What did you do to Rudd?”

“I hit him with a poker.”

“Good heavens, madam! Do you mean to say that you served those men their just due all by yourself?”

Cerynise shrugged her shoulders in a lame gesture of admittance. “I had to do something, Beau. I overheard them making plans to kill you if you came back early. They were going to take me back to England where eventually they were going to murder me so Alistair could gain the inheritance.…”

“But I thought he had already inherited everything…or was it true what he told you on his last visit?”

“He’s been lying all along, at least since the day he learned that Lydia had changed her will, leaving everything to me.” Cerynise leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder as they moved past the stairs. “It must have come as a terrible shock to him after he threw me out of Lydia’s house.”

“So that’s why he was so anxious to reclaim you as his ward.”

“He wanted me to expire before witnesses in England so he could claim Lydia’s fortune as her only living kin.”

Beau paused as he caught sight of something that looked very much like a wraith hovering in the shadows beneath the spiraling staircase. He peered intently at the thing, trying to make it out. “What in heaven’s name is that?”

“Oh, that’s my friendly ghost,” Cerynise announced, waving a hand toward it. “He helped me knock the wind out of Rudd.”

Her husband looked at her, truly flabbergasted at her inventiveness. “But what is it?”

“A large kettle with a bag of flour in it and a sheet covering it all,” she explained, rather proud of her creation. “I think Alistair and Rudd actually thought it was real for a moment. They screamed as if they thought the banshees of hell were coming after them.”

Beau chortled. “Oh, my dear, dear wife. To think that I missed it all!”

“Are we going to leave Alistair in the house while we
travel to Harthaven?” she queried worriedly, reverting back to her real concern.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t think we’ll have to go now,” Beau replied. “The storm has changed course and is blowing out to sea. If it doesn’t revert back, we’ll be safe enough here.”

Cerynise heaved a deep sigh in relief. “I wasn’t looking forward to the long ride after what I’ve been through tonight. If not for the fact that I’m a nursing mother, I’d try some of that brandy of yours to calm myself.” In some amazement she thrust out her hands to show him how much she was trembling now that he had come home.

“What did you do with our son while all of this was going on?” Beau queried.

“I locked him in the linen closet upstairs.” She rose on tiptoes to bestow a kiss upon her husband’s lips, and then stepped away. “I’ll go and fetch him.”