Chapter 20 #2
She splashed spirits into two glasses with a shaking hand. She didn’t want to die, fast or slow. She looked for anything she could use to any purpose. Short of hurling the decanter at one of the men, which would hardly have good effect, she could think of nothing.
“Would you gentlemen like some?” she asked, wondering if she could get them drunk.
“We’ll have our pleasure later,” said the bearded man with a grin unpleasantly reminiscent of his master. Beth shuddered. Perhaps death was the least of the evils she faced.
As she walked back towards the sofa with the glasses, there was a sharp, high-pitched cry from upstairs. She froze, looking up as if she could see through the plaster. The sound was not repeated.
“Ah, I wish I could see this one,” muttered Pig-eyes, and the other sniggered.
“So proud and white,” sneered Black-beard, “She won’t be so white after he’s had his way with her. Black and blue and bloody, too.” They both grinned at their wit.
Beth sat down abruptly and thrust one of the glasses into Clarissa’s hand. “Drink it. It’s vile-tasting, but it helps. Drink.”
She herself took a deep swallow and grimaced as it burned down.
She thought she caught a movement outside the window.
By great force of will she did not look.
After a few seconds, she turned to place her glass upon a table.
Through the lace curtains she saw the edge of Robin’s face and a thumbs-up sign. She hastily looked away.
Her heart speeded. She had to struggle not to show the upsurge of hope. Who had Robin found? She didn’t care. Their situation could not possibly be worse.
Though the men never stopped watching them, their other senses were clearly directed to catching traces of the events in the bedroom.
Another cry came, this time more guttural and despairing.
It almost sounded like a cry of death. Surely the deranged man wouldn’t kill Blanche for his pleasure. Why not? They were all to die anyway.
Oh hurry, whoever you are!
There was a crash from above and a heavy thud. Clarissa gasped and spilled her untouched brandy.
The pig-eyed guard licked his moist lips and nudged the other man. “If we’re going to kill the fancy one anyway,” he said, giving up any pretense otherwise, “do you think he’ll let us have her first? I need a woman bad.”
“There’s a chance,” agreed the bearded one. “There’s the maids, too.”
“That’s right,” said Pig-eyes with enthusiasm. “I forgot the maids. One of ’em’s a bit scraggy, but the other’d do. Gor, I wish I could go now. I hurt something bad.”
“You’ll hurt worse if he finds you’ve left your post.”
Beth concentrated on keeping her face blank as she sensed movement in the hall behind the men.
She wasn’t sure she was breathing, but her mind seemed clear.
Someone was there, and whoever it was must be their hope of survival.
She reached for her glass. As soon as she saw a figure, she knocked the crystal onto the floor.
It shattered into a hundred pieces. Both men jumped.
Black-beard took a step forward. “Watch it—” He stopped speaking.
“You have a pistol against the back of your head,” said the marquess, “and your friend is similarly favored. We can’t possibly miss. Give us your weapons.”
Beth saw Black-beard consider shooting her anyway—Lord Deveril must be a fearsome employer—but then he gave up his weapon with a curse into Lucien’s hand. It was Robin who took the other pistol, for the man holding the gun to Pig-eyes’s head was the one-armed Mr. Beaumont.
“Robin,” said the marquess, “go and find something to tie these two.” The boy dashed off.
“Lucien,” said Beth, leaping to her feet. “You must help Blanche. He has her upstairs.”
The marquess looked at the two men and his one-armed friend, then beckoned Beth. When she had carefully moved next to him, he gave her the pistol. “Hold it so, pressed against the bone. If he twitches, just squeeze the trigger.”
He gave her a quick kiss and then raced for the stairs. To stop.
Beth glanced up, then turned to look, forgetting the man at the end of her pistol.
Blanche was descending the stairs with a long, wicked knife held loosely in her hand.
Her gown was torn from her breasts and she was streaked with blood—a macabre study in red and white except for her eyes which were dilated black with horror.
“‘The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures,’” the actress quoted dreamily. Beth recognized the words of Lady Macbeth “’Tis the eye of childhood that fears the painted devil. Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.’”
“Blanche,” said Lucien, rooted at the base of the stairs.
Hal Beaumont shook him and gave him his pistol. “Look to the men. They are more likely to require two hands.”
Beaumont then went quickly up the stairs. He removed the knife from Blanche’s relaxed grip and dropped it. Then he took her firmly in his one arm, despite the blood. “Did you kill him?” he said in a calm voice. “Good for you.”
Beth remembered Hal had been a professional soldier, no stranger to gore. His matter-of-fact tone was just what was needed. The White Dove burst into body-shaking sobs.
Beth tightened her grip on the pistol and quickly looked back at her target, but both the bullies stood frozen. “She can’t have killed him,” Pig-eyes said. “She can’t have.”
“Whether she has or not,” Lucien said coldly, “your part is over.”
Robin scampered up from the basement with a length of rope and the men were securely bound, hand and foot.
When Robin explained he’d got the rope by untying one of the maids, who’d promptly had hysterics, he was sent back with instructions to untie the other but keep the two women down there until further notice.
Then Lucien carefully relieved Beth of the weapon she still clutched in her hand and uncocked it before taking her in his arms. “Are you unhurt, sweetheart?”
It felt wonderful to be safe. “Oh yes, Lucien, but it’s been horrible. The man is mad. Quite mad.” She was trembling with reaction and fighting hard not to burst into tears herself. His hand gently stroked her neck.
“Was, I suspect. I don’t think Blanche would mistake such a thing.” He turned with Beth still cradled in his arms to look at the White Dove, protected by Mr. Beaumont’s one strong arm.
The two of them had made their way down the stairs and Blanche’s tears had ceased, though they could still be seen on her cheeks. Her gown had been rearranged to cover her and was fastened by what looked like a man’s cravat pin.
“He is dead, Blanche?” Lucien asked.
“Oh yes,” she replied with a calm which was a clear indication of shock. “I gutted him like a pig.”
“I wanted to kill him,” said Lucien in mock outrage.
“You’d have to stand in line,” said Hal.
“He was mine,” said Blanche with such a look in her eyes that the men gave up the flippant debate. “He was mine,” she repeated and then took a deep shuddering breath and assumed a light manner. “I have always wanted to do Macbeth,” she remarked. “I think I will next season.”
“God, Blanche….” Then Lucien just shook his head and went to pour four glasses of brandy. Everyone drank them to steady their nerves. Beth replaced Clarissa’s scarce-touched glass in her hand and once again said, “Drink.”
“She really killed him?” asked the girl faintly.
“I believe so.”
“I’m glad really, but—”
“I know. Don’t think about it. We don’t need a scene, Clarissa.”
The girl finally took a shuddering sip from her glass.
“I always keep a knife down the side of the bed,” explained Blanche, who was a little more normal after the spirits, and consequently rather shaky.
“I got into the habit quite early in life.” She knocked off the last of her brandy.
Her hand was visibly shaking. She looked down at herself and grimaced.
“I must go and wash. The White Dove never wears colors…. In the kitchen, I think.”
“No,” said Hal, looking at Blanche like a man seeing the Holy Grail. “Think of the poor maids. Go to one of the spare rooms and I’ll bring you water. Just let me check on Deveril first. It’s always possible he still lives.”
He went upstairs and returned in a few moments, considerably paler. “You are rather thorough, aren’t you?”
“He wanted to enjoy my hate in bed,” said Blanche flatly. “I obliged him.”
Clearly this was enough to startle even a soldier, but then a blissful smile spread over Hal’s face and he tenderly escorted Blanche upstairs. In a few moments he came down for the water.
“I gather Blanche has a new protector,” said Lucien dryly to his dazed friend.
“Protection? She doesn’t need it,” Hal said with a smile.
“Isn’t she magnificent? Anyway, I’m going to marry her.
” He shrugged and gave a slight smile. “Somehow. She isn’t taken with the notion at the moment.
I must admit, it’s not the best time to have offered.
But think of the magnificent offspring that hellcat would produce. ” He then hurried off on his errand.
Beth started to laugh. Once started, she couldn’t stop until the hysteria dissolved into painful tears. She clung to Lucien and he gently drew her down to sit on his lap.
She heard his awkward, concerned murmurs. “There, there. Don’t cry, love. You’re safe. I’ll never let anyone hurt you….”
“He—-he was going to have you killed.”
“Me? Why?”
Beth pulled herself together and sat up a little. Her bonnet was askew and the silly curls were plastered by tears to her cheek. “I must look a sight…. Because you would revenge me. He was utterly mad.”
“What I want to know,” asked Lucien with an attempt to severity, “is how you came into his hands. How you came here at all.”
“I came to check on Clarissa,” said Beth.
“You had no business coming anywhere near this house.”
“You brought me here last night!”
“An unfortunate necessity. You will not come here again. It’s the outside of enough—”