A Clandestine Courtship Part 23

"Of course not. But she had gone to Ridgeway a few days earlier, hoping to get a position as a maid. The rumor claims that she not only failed to get the job, but lost her virtue in the process."

How much truth was in the tale? he wondered. Everyone knew Mrs. Washburn never hired young girls. It was her defense against John's lechery. Even the most credulous girl should have known her chances of being hired were nonexistent.

But her claim may have covered her real purpose. John could charm the birds off the trees when he put his mind to it. He never used force until he had failed to gain cooperation. He would have enjoyed seducing the girl, luring her into his lair with either the promise of a job or a tour of the house. Ridgeway contained enough treasures to captivate a simple girl. And too many innocents enjoyed the danger of flirting with a libertine.

She would have stood no chance of escape.

"Thank you for telling me," he said aloud. "I've no doubt the tale is true. And judging from others I've heard, she would have suffered greatly at his hands. Perhaps it is a mercy she contracted influenza. One of his other victims tried to drown herself in the lake."

Mary blanched. Only then did he realize that he had spoken. a.s.s! he berated himself, tempted to beat his head against a tree. How was he to calm Mary's fears after confirming that intimacy was so frightening that girls would rather kill themselves than live with the memory.

"Most men are not like that," he said, forcing calm into his voice. "Which is why John's behavior was so appalling."

"I know," she said, but he could see that she was far from convinced. "I will try to remember where I've seen that hand. Stop at Northfield on your way home. Perhaps we will both know more by then."

She turned down another path and left him.

Mary cursed herself even as she cantered toward the safety of the house. But she had needed to escape his company. The heat in his eyes had made her-just for a moment-long to fling herself into his arms and his bed.

Fool!

He was far more dangerous than his brother, for his kindness weakened her defenses.

Hurling stronger invective at her own stupidity, she dismounted and strode into the house. She had nearly fallen into the same trap as Alice Ruddy-calling at a bachelor establishment. The servants would have repeated the tale, confirming every rumor about her. The resulting scandal could have damaged Caro and Amelia.

Idiot! She didn't even have an excuse. The tale about Alice had no bearing on his investigation. The girl had been dead for a year, so there was certainly no urgency about it. Her real reason for calling was pathetic-she had wanted to see him. If she had needed further confirmation of the danger he posed, she need look no further.

It was time to find that cottage. Staying here was clearly unbalancing her mind. Perhaps Devon would be suitable. Lady Carworth had visited cousins there two years ago, returning with tales of the salubrious climate and a new fascination with sea bathing. Devon was sufficiently removed from both Shropshire and Lincolnshire that she would never see him again. This odd yearning would surely subside once he was out of sight.

Are you sure? The voice taunted her, reminding her of his words only last night. He had sounded so sincere when he vowed never to hurt her. The idea that lovemaking could be enjoyable was insidiously enticing. Why would touches and kisses build such desire if the reality of intimacy was always pain?

But she pushed the thought aside. Experience was more trustworthy than tempting promises made by a gentleman who cheerfully admitted he wanted her. She had a huge advantage over the naive girls who went in ignorance to their marriage beds. She had lived through the reality. Barely.

As soon as they identified John's killer, she would find that cottage. In fact, she needn't wait that long. Once she matched that hand, she would write to their man of business and instruct him to seek out an appropriate property.

Pulling out the current month's receipts, she started sorting. Was the proposed meeting real or a trap? Her mind toyed with possibilities while her fingers turned over papers.

Butcher... thatch for a tenant cottage... blacksmith services...

If it was a trap, the killer must have given up on staging accidents. He no longer cared if people recognized murder. Did he plan to leave the area, or was he the last person anyone would suspect? Could it be Isaac? He was the one man who had no known grievance. And he had a champion throwing arm.

Candles... harness... two rams...

James was not stupid. He had been asking questions, poking into the past, prodding the magistrate. The accidents had put him on his guard. So the killer must know that he would bring company to the meeting-and probably weapons. She shivered.

Coal... repairs to Wilson's barn... subscription fee to the circulating library...

The meeting had to be a trap. The mill was isolated, uninhabited, dangerous. It was surrounded by woods, reachable only by a winding lane that branched from the distant road.

Seed... hay... a dozen buckets...

What would he do? It would depend on his ident.i.ty, but he had to make certain that James died this time. Failure would bring the authorities down on his head. If the killer was a gentleman, he might use a gun. A tenant would have no access to a gun and little skill with weapons. But the note had not been written by a tenant. And the killer had revealed deadly aim with his rocks.

Dresses for the girls... ten scythes... fabric for servants' clothing...

Trap!

She screamed.

Receipts rained onto the floor.

They had not considered a third possibility. The killer was wily. He would never allow James to set up a counter-trap. Knowing an intelligent man would check out the meeting site if given the opportunity, he would already be in position.

She was trembling so hard, she had trouble removing her m.u.f.f pistols from the gun cabinet. Gulping air, she shakily loaded each one.

Please G.o.d, let me be wrong.

The simple operation seemed to take forever, but she could not rush. A poorly loaded pistol was useless and would endanger her. Sweat was trickling down her temples by the time she was done. Making sure that each trigger was locked into its handle so the guns would not accidentally discharge, she jammed them into a pocket and raced to the stables.

Another eternity pa.s.sed while a groom saddled her horse. She kept her face placid and her hands relaxed. If she was wrong, she did not want to alert the culprit of her suspicions.

But she knew she was right. James was in danger. She could feel it in the pain exploding through her head-or was it his?

Kicking Acorn to a gallop, she jumped a hedge and raced toward the mill.

Fabric for servants' clothing. Usually Mrs. Ruddy wrote out the accounts, but sometimes her husband did it. As he had done this month.

Ruddy was strong, though considerably shorter than the twins. But that hadn't mattered. He had one of the best throwing arms in the district. He and Barnes had vied for years at quoits, and Ruddy prided himself on his accuracy.

The pounding in her head grew worse, dragging her heart into a matching rhythm.

She could understand why he had hated John-Alice had probably been raped. She could even accept that Frederick had partic.i.p.ated, which explained his accident. But what grudge could Ruddy have against James? Unless James had been hiding information, he had never once suspected the merchant.

Be careful. She repeated the admonition, slowing to a walk as she approached the mill. James's horse was tethered near the door. No other was in sight, but she could take no chances. Dismounting, she led Acorn into the cover of the woods.

Ruddy's mule was tied to a tree.

Chapter Fifteen.

James tethered his horse to a post, pausing to examine the mill's exterior. The stone walls seemed strong, though the roof sagged dangerously in the middle and the few small windows were shuttered. He cautiously circled the building. Weeds grew thick across the path. The attached cottage appeared gloomy and desolate, with a flower garden long since gone feral. After his wife had died, Tate had done little to keep it up.

He shook his head. The sluice gates that controlled the flow through the millrace had rotted. Though Tate had died less than a year ago, debris was already building up in the race. Surprisingly, enough water still flowed to keep the wheel turning. This stream rushed faster than most, flushing the race after each storm.

Climbing the few steps to the platform that surrounded the wheel, he a.s.sessed the deterioration. The platform itself was reasonably st.u.r.dy, though several boards showed signs of incipient rot. The wheel was another matter. Many of the paddles had broken, making its rotation far from smooth. The uneven rhythm rasped nerves already stretched with tension.

A system of pulleys had once hauled bags of grain through the wide upper window. Now they dangled from broken spars, held in place only by a single length of frayed rope. A pigeon strutted along the window ledge, its beady eye quizzing him as arrogantly as Brummell's gla.s.s.

But he was not here to evaluate the condition of the mill, he reminded himself sharply. Casting a last wary glance upward, he jumped down and completed his circuit.

The door hung drunkenly on one hinge, revealing a thick layer of undisturbed dust on the floor. He relaxed. No one had entered in some time.

He pushed the door wider, its creak drowned by the jerky thumping of the wheel. It reverberated through the mill, explaining why Tate had always been half deaf.

Finding a new miller would be difficult. He could see dry rot in several beams. Water damage proved that the roof leaked. A hole gaped in the floor of the tiny office.

The mill had never been formally abandoned, he realized as his eyes adjusted to an interior lit only by the open door and a few shafts of sunlight sneaking through cracks in the shutters. The ma.s.sive grinding stones had been uncoupled from the drive shaft, of course, but their bulk still filled the center of the room. Gears and chutes cast grotesque shadows.

The floor shook as he stepped closer. The drive shaft turned with the wheel, sending shivers through the mill. Would the floor give way, dumping him and tons of stone into the cellar?

The image drove his feet toward a wall, farther from the stones. The killer might have set the stage for another accident. If the floor gave way, he would be badly hurt and easy to finish off. Who would suspect murder? The mill was a logical place for him to visit, for he had to find a new miller. He shivered.

More shadows loomed as he moved farther from the door. The three of them could hide nearly anywhere tonight-so long as they wore dark clothing, he admitted, catching glimpses of white. Bird droppings. The spots were widely scattered down here, but mounds of them must fill the granary upstairs. Birds would have found a way in and picked the place bare.

Even light colors stood out. A branch gleamed in the corner, stripped of bark from tumbling in the river, its wood bleached by the sun. A glance down revealed the blaze of his cambric shirt, visible in the slightly darker V of his gold striped waistcoat.

So they must wear black. And walk carefully. Dusk would hide multiple footprints once they were past the doorway-provided the informant earned no lantern.

He frowned. Perhaps Harry and Edwin should enter through the miller's cottage.

His eyes suspiciously probed the shadows. The unrelenting thump and creak of the wheel reverberated in his head, drowning other sounds and making him edgy. He glanced over one shoulder. Anyone could sneak up on him without warning.

The building needed more repairs than he had expected, so perhaps he should tear it down. He had heard speculation in London that steam engines would soon replace water wheels for power generation. If water mills went the way of cottage spinning, there would be little point in repairing this one. Replacing it with new methods would give his dependents a head start on the future.

But that was not why he was here today. Skirting the edges of the milling room, he a.s.sessed hiding places. Rotting grain sacks were heaped beside a stack of lumber. Someone had used the site as a dump-probably Tate himself. Ginger beer bottles littered the floor, though the brown earthenware containers only drew his attention when he stepped on one, turning an ankle. Tate had been uncommonly fond of ginger beer, he recalled as his finger traced the potter's mark- Bourne of Denby. He tossed it atop a pile of refuse in the corner, where it joined a carriage wheel, broken chairs, a barrel with rotting staves, and a rusting plow. The junk would offer concealment for a small army.

The steps leading to the granary were blocked by yet another trash pile. Had Tate ceased operating the mill before his death? Perhaps the man had suffered a lengthy illness.

But Tate did not matter at the moment. He turned toward the living quarters. As soon as he checked that entrance, he would find Harry and Edwin so they could plot their strategy for this evening.

He was pa.s.sing the millstones, when stars exploded through his head. Trap! screamed his mind as darkness descended.

Tom Ruddy dropped his club to the floor and smiled, the whites of his mad eyes gleaming in the darkness.

James blinked, trying to focus. Where was he? The soft glow of a single candle barely penetrated the darkness, deepening the shadows beyond its meager circle. The floor pulsed under his side, matching the uneven beat of the mill wheel.

Thump... thump thump...

Dust tickled his nose, but when he tried to brush it away, his hands would not move. They were bound behind his back.

"So yer awake, yer b.l.o.o.d.y lordship."

Tom Ruddy lounged on the fringes of the candlelight.

Memory surged back with a vengeance. How long had he been unconscious? Had darkness fallen? He couldn't move his head enough to see if sunlight still sifted through the shutters. All he could sense was the wheel.

Thump thump... thump...

He refocused on Ruddy. "So it was you."

"You sound surprised. You shoulda known I'd pay you back for my lovely Alice." His voice wavered with grief-and madness.

"I never met your daughter," he said slowly, fighting down panic. "I only heard of her death last week. Influenza, wasn't it?"

Thump... thump thump...

"As if you didn't know! None of them lies, now. Yer brother said the same thing, but I know better. You killed her. I found her broken body where you tossed her in the quarry. Put it about she'd died of influenza so's that b.l.o.o.d.y Mrs. Bridwell would keep her poisoned tongue off my darling, but I know what happened. She lived long enough to tell me who done her in."

Thump thump... thump... thump... thump thump...

Water splashed and dripped outside, taunting the dryness of his mouth. His heart had lodged firmly in his throat, pounding in the same uneven rhythm as the wheel and constraining his voice. "Then you'll know I had nothing to do with it. I've not been near Ridgeway in ten years."

"So ye say, just like ye always did, but we seen through ye in the end. Ye b.l.o.o.d.y twins-teasing and playing yer silly games, standin' in for each other so's you could claim to be elsewhere. It won't work this time. I don't care which of you was with Northrup that day. I'll kill you both to avenge my Allie's murder. But first I'll make ye suffer like she did. Tell me what you done to her."

The knife sliced through his jacket sleeve. The wheel squealed, rasping his nerves.

"I wasn't there."

Ruddy's eyes flashed as he sliced through the shirtsleeve and into the flesh beneath. "Tell me."

James gritted his teeth to suppress any cry of pain. He needed to think, but panic and a second cut to his leg clouded his mind.

Thump... thump thump... thump...

The wheel beat against his ears. How was he to break through Ruddy's madness to convince him he was innocent?

"Why do you want to know?"

"Tell me! Confess! Maybe you'll spend eternity in a cooler corner of h.e.l.l."

"I wasn't there!"

The wheel screeched-or was it him, screaming? Ruddy refused to listen, shouting and raging over the attack on Alice, demanding an admission of guilt.

Thump thump thump thump...

Rushing water clogged his ears, speeding the wheel, speeding his heart. Pain exploded through his stomach, blows landed on his ribs, fire burned down his thigh. And every jerking shudder of the wheel vibrated through the floor, magnifying his suffering.