CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Bingley had tied his horse in the thicket beside the road and walked what was a distance of nearly half a mile through the brush to the edge of the clearing on the westerly side of the massive abode. As was his usual practice, he would pilfer a horse from the stable and ride it to that point, where it would be tied in the same place as his horse. The only catch in this plot was that, because he rode in on horseback and not by carriage, he was unable to leave the stolen horse a bucket of fresh water. This he lamented.
He peered out into the moat and sure enough, the tide was ebbing toward the sea, but what must have been nearly a foot of water still swayed to and fro in perfect rhythm. He checked his watch and saw that it was nearly half-past midnight. In timing the movement of the waves, he calculated, roughly, that the tide would be at its lowest—and most crossable—point at quarter after one. He bided his time listening and watching what he could. The night was moonless and murky, his movements would be advantageously obscured by the low cloud cover.
At ten minutes to one Bingley observed the extinguishment of the single lamp in the master suite. Glancing down at the moat, or what was left of it, he concluded that two to four inches of sea was all that remained. By the time he climbed the vines over the wall, down the stable roof, and made the appropriate observations in terms of security and his exit strategy, the Lord of the house would be fast asleep, and surprise easily had. He swallowed the massive lump in his throat, and after pulling his cloak’s hood over his head, checked the surrounding area once more, then darted for the castle’s outer rampart.
His exquisite boots splashed across the rocks under fog so dense he nearly ran straight into the wall—only his arms broke his stride. He clenched the ivy while he caught his breath. Looking up he could scarce see the peak of the wall due to the haze. Once he collected himself, he began his ascent. His climb was an arduous one as, having no footholds to utilize, he was compelled to use, ostensibly, only his upper body. His arms and shoulders strained with effort, and he nearly exerted all his strength when, with one enterprising stretch, he felt under his fingers the top of the wall. Buoyed by the nearness of the apex, he was able to raise his entire body onto the barricade, which incidentally, was at least four feet thick. He panted and laid motionless in a pool of his own sweat; his muscles pulsed with relief.
Within a few moments, he regained his self-possession and crept toward the interior edge of the bulwark to observe the circumstances into which he would fling himself. The stable was but twenty yards from him, and—just as Maitland had recalled—had a perfectly sloping roof that would be simple to descend from his current position. There was not a sound, save the lapping of the waves; no movement in the yard, save a pig settling in its sty. This sight caused a momentary reflection on a summer some time past, when a very skilful peasant in the north with an anfractuous understanding of swine and their slaughter, had helped him prepare—unbeknownst to either of them at the time—for the greatest task of his life. He drew a long breath and scrambled toward the ledge, leaping onto the stable’s roof. The startled sounds of horses and pigs gave him a moment’s hesitation, until he realized that in his current position, he was in full sight of half the yard and several windows in the tower. With great stealth and even greater dexterity, he flung himself toward a tall bale of hay, which broke his momentum. He landed rather inelegantly on his feet, thankfully with no damage done to either himself or the hay bale.
Bingley adjusted his hood and quickly took cover behind the stable. Peering around its corner, he observed the empty yard, devoid of human activity. The animals had quieted back to their slumber, and nearly all was still, aside from the bare and breeze-blown tree limbs. Perhaps fifty feet across the yard he identified the kitchen door, which appeared to be latched. He bolted toward it and was shocked to find it unlocked. Having cracked it open only enough to peer inside, he found the large room empty, last embers dying in the hearth. Once inside, he closed the door quietly behind him. To his left the long servants table drew his eyes toward an opening that was, no doubt, an entry into the bottom floor of the house. Across the room from his vantage point, just as Maitland had described, was a burlap bag hanging from a rafter. Bingley clandestinely cross the room, taking great pains to ensure that his footsteps were nearly silent. He pushed on the bag and, just as reported, the stones creaked forward and to the right on a hinge. Before him was a stone stairway, spiralling up and out of sight.
As he entered the stairwell the door closed silently behind him and, save for the light of what must have been a window some distance up, Bingley found himself in nearly total darkness. Using his palm as a guide, his hand followed the wall, and his feet cautiously took each step. He came to a small window, which because of the moonless night, hardly illuminated the path, after he had climbed forty-three steps—he had been sure to keep count. He began to wonder if there was a secret opening into the bedchamber that, perhaps, Maitland had failed to recall or never even discovered. The staircase ended not at that point, so he continued his ascent. After another forty-three steps exactly, he came to another window, this one under a landing. The subsequent steps narrowed drastically. He assumed these led to the roof, although he couldn’t be positive. Out the window the bay was visible, shoreline lit here and there by lamps from homes, and the beginnings of a shower spattered against the glass. Having his bearings roughly in place, Bingley searched the wall to his left for a door, and to his surprise, found a proper handle. He turned it quietly until the door opened just a crack. Putting his ear to the opening, he listened intently. All he heard was calm breathing. He furtively nudged it open and looked round it into the room—an enormous chamber furnished with a regal canopy bed. Across the room, a dresser stood under a large window—atop the dresser sat a single unlit lantern.
Bingley unsheathed his knife and entered slowly. He made his way silently toward the bed, taking care to suppress his accelerated respiration. Aside from the blood coursing through his ears and his own stifled breathing, he only heard the sound of his victim’s sleep. At the edge of the bed, he lifted his knife in his right hand while taking hold of the corner of the thick duvet in his other. He flung the cover back to find the bed empty. His mind had not time to process his shock when he was suddenly and forcefully grabbed from behind. He swung his blade down instinctively. His attacker let out a bestial howl as Bingley’s blade ripped through the flesh of the man’s right buttock. In the ensuing scramble, Bingley freed himself from the grip, only to find himself entangled with another stranger in the dark. He swung his knife wildly, connecting with flesh only occasionally as he felt himself being pummelled from all angles. He suddenly realized he was grappling with more than one man, as the mass of them spun in circles, crashing into other bodies, chairs, and articles throughout the room. In the skirmish, Bingley’s feet became tangled in the mass of humanity, and he felt himself spin toward the stone floor. He landed crudely atop one of his assailants, and with an audible crack of his spine, all his breath left him. Gasping on the unforgiving floor, his knife was pried from his hand, and he was gripped firmly around the neck. Rolled onto his stomach, his face was pressed into the cold stone and his hands were tied behind him.
One of his attackers attempted to attend to the man Bingley had stabbed, though it seemed from his waning moans that not much hope could be held out for him. Bingley deduced that, aside from the dying man on the floor, there were three additional combatants with whom he had vied. Those who remained alive—Bingley included—panted and struggled to regain a normal breathing pattern.
“Who are you?” one of the figures in the dark barked. After no response was given save his rapid respiration, the man demanded: “You are the butcher ?”
After a moment’s hesitation and a deep breath, Bingley growled defiantly, “I am but a ghost.”
“That is all that will be left of you soon enough,” another man answered.
Bingley’s mind raced distractedly between his pain and his astonishment at the situation in which he found himself. The bedchamber should have been empty, save Lord St. John. The light went out at one. The moat was easily traversed by foot. He had been, with minimal inconvenience, able to use the vines to scale the wall. The stable was exactly as he had pictured it. Even the location of the secret door from the kitchen was where it was supposed to be. So why had this mission gone so wholly and abominably awry? Every vital element had been described perfectly in minute detail by—
That was it—he had been betrayed by Maitland. That low-born Brummy bastard has made a May game of me, Bingley fumed. How could I have been so trusting, so naive? Even Wilshere had been hesitant to cover the complete details of the castle’s layout with the newly hired young man. Surely his steward had been the wiser man. But that was his own greatest weakness, was it not? He was too optimistic, too agreeable, too guileless for his own good—and where had it got him? Here he was, sure to be publicly disgraced in the worst way by one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. His sisters would be abased and cast out of the society of which his father had toiled his entire life to grant them access, and in the course of not five years, he would have undone it all. There was also the good chance that he would be hanged as a common criminal. Certainly, there was no proof that he had been involved in the murders of Andrew Fraser or Thomas Abbott, but he had been caught in the act of attempted murder. He was, no doubt, bound for the gallows, and that low-born knave he had relied upon had sent him there.
As his captors pulled him to his feet, he censured himself for his selfish ruminations. Surely, he thought of his sisters and their place in society, but even if he were gone, their fortunes would be intact, and perhaps even enhanced. In his initial brooding over his current scrape, he had forgotten completely the innocent maidens, who would not only go unavenged by his failure, but who would continue to be victimized by such a diabolical plot. Young ladies would continue to be hunted, lured away from their families, ravaged, and ultimately dispatched as if their continued existence was nothing more than a nuisance.
“Am I to be disgraced publicly?” Bingley demanded.
“Who are you, but a nightcrawler, a blackguard with a penchant for murdering the wealthy?” answered the man behind him.
“Rubbish like you don’t deserve the public recognition,” declared another of the men as he moved toward the window. He pushed it open and set the lantern on the ground beside the table. “No, you shan’t be disgraced. Up you go.”
Bingley was hoisted onto the dresser and made to stand before the open window.
“What is to become of me, then?” Bingley queried.
“To become of you?” laughed the brute who climbed up with him. “You are going to disappear.”
More gruff laughter echoed through the chamber.
“But first, you are going to break your neck.”
Bingley was nudged until his toes were over the ledge. He glanced down and quickly closed his eyes—the distance from the tower window to the rocks below was at least sixty feet. Suddenly, his thoughts turned to Jane Bennet. If only he could have, at the very least, told her who he was, what he was trying to accomplish. A revelation of his brutal mission would have surely startled her and may have even driven her away, but at least he would have been fully known. Even now he held out the hope that she might have understood that his character would never allow him to be a bystander while pure and undiluted evil flourished. Surely this she could have accepted, and perhaps, it would have allowed her to ascertain his true nature and maybe even respect him all the more. But finally, his last torture would be going to his watery grave without telling her that he loved her— he loved her .
“Now would be the time to say a prayer,” the ruffian behind him growled.
He may have managed a word to the almighty before his thoughts hurried back to Jane, and then, to his horror, to Wickham. George Wickham would now have unconstrained, unchallenged access to the Bennet family, and perhaps, with his own body feeding the fish of the Channel, that fiend would vie for the attention of Miss Bennet herself. At this reprehensible thought he began to struggle, writhing to and fro until his shirt was firmly gripped by a second guard.
“To the devil with you now!” cried the ruffian.
Just before he felt himself completely overpowered and tossed to his death, a loud sound like a cannon burst his ears and a flash of muzzle illuminated the room. He spun and ducked clumsily, and in doing so one of the men who had subdued him tripped and vanished from the ledge and out of sight with a caterwaul. The thud of his body on the stone below was heard but a second later. The other man who had been with him on the dresser simply slumped to the tower floor, having been shot through the heart. Bingley knelt and heard the unmistakable sounds of a struggle, then of a man’s shrieking diminishing to a low wheeze.
“Master!”
“Wilshere—is that you?” Bingley gasped into the darkness.
“Master Bingley!” heaved the worried reply. The steward rushed over and unbound his master’s hands. “Are you hurt, sir?”
“No,” sighed Bingley, “not critically.”
“Thank God!”
“Why on earth did you come here? Did you discover that Maitland betrayed us?”
“Maitland— betrayed ?” Wilshere asked dumbfounded. “He is right here, sir.”
“ What? ”
“He is the one who learned of the trap, disarmed the guard at the front gate, and… finished off that one there.”
Bingley panted heavily. “I do not—I do not comprehend you. I was nearly certain that St. John must have greased him in the fist to set up this trap.”
“No, sir,” Maitland finally spoke up, “I could never do such a thing. I swore that I would forever be in your service, and I intend to keep my word.”
“Let us flee this place and we will regather our bearings at the hotel.”
“Are you fit to ride, my Lord?” Wilshere asked.
“I assure you, my man, I am unhurt and alive, thanks to you both. I owe to each of you a debt which I can never hope to repay.”
“There shan’t be a need, sir,” answered Wilshere.
With that, the three men escaped to the woods where they untied their horses and absconded back into the hotel under the cover of thick darkness.