Chapter 16
T hey didn’t encounter anyone in the forest as they made their way back down the crag.
Their progress was slow, save for when they reached the spot where the rocks had fallen. Then, without having to speak, they joined hands and ran across the gap as quickly as Alfie’s leg could carry him. By the time they reached the manor, he was limping worse than he had in months and groaned when he realised where Dominick was leading him.
“The gymnasium? Really?”
Dominick raised an eyebrow. “You want to have this talk in front of some maid sweeping out the fire or Jarrett folding up your socks?”
“Fine,” said Alfie. “But I’m not doing any of my blasted exercises. I’ve suffered enough today.”
He hadn’t realised how much he really had suffered until they were in the gymnasium, its smell of leather, chalk dust, and dried sweat more comforting than it should be. The moment Dominick had the key turned in the lock, Alfie threw his arms around him, gripping him tightly. He didn’t realise he was shaking until Dominick’s arms came up around him too, crushing their bodies together.
Neither was willing to be the first to let go. Nearly seeing the man you loved die or being killed yourself wasn’t a thing someone should have to get used to and Alfie hadn’t, God damn it! The look Dominick had given him the moment they heard the rocks crashing down from above was just as terrible as it had been the first time their lives were threatened and had filled Alfie with the same bottomless dread.
And afterwards, he hadn’t even been able to hold Dominick’s hand.
Well, Alfie would hold him now. He buried his face in Dominick’s collar until he could feel the pulse of his throat against his lips, rhythmic proof that Dominick was alive. A-live. A-live. A-live.
Finally, Alfie’s leg grew too painful for him to ignore any longer. He reluctantly pulled away, not that Dominick was willing to release him, and sat on the nearest chair to hand.
That was unfortunately the chamber horse, an absurd piece of equipment with a bellows for a seat, meant to mimic the motion of riding a horse and help improve the required muscles. The chamber horse let out a protesting wheeze as he sank down, but he was too distracted by the sudden relief in his leg to care.
Dominick didn’t go far, sitting at his feet and leaning back against Alfie’s uninjured leg. He wrapped his hand around Alfie’s ankle, and even through the boot, the pressure was grounding. When he dropped his head back against Alfie’s knee and closed his eyes, he looked like a fallen angel.
Alfie took the opportunity to run his fingers through Dominick’s hair, working through the sweat-dampened tangles until the blond strands parted around his fingers like water. They stayed that way for some time, him petting Dominick and the gesture soothing both of them. Dominick sat so still and his breathing grew so heavy, Alfie began to wonder if he’d fallen asleep.
“I’m tired of people trying to kill us,” Dominick said at last, his voice thick.
Alfie huffed. “Me too.”
Dominick stayed silent for several more minutes. Alfie began to wish one of them had thought to light the small fireplace before settling in, if nothing else so that he could see Dominick more clearly. The windows in this wing of the house did very little to keep the chill out while also never letting enough light in.
Finally, Dominick spoke again. “If they're going to keep doing it, the least they could do is tell us why they’re trying to kill us.”
“Any ideas this time?” Alfie asked.
Dominick shook his head against Alfie’s knee. “Could it be more of that ‘cut’ nonsense that farmer on the cart did? Not liking the new earl at Balcarres?”
“Or the new bugger at Balcarres,” Alfie offered. “Or the new bastard-maker at Balcarres, depending on which rumours are going about. Captain McConnell surprised the murderer the first time and was killed instead, so he tried again today?”
“And since that didn’t work either, he’ll likely try again,” Dominick said darkly. “You do believe the captain was murdered then?”
Alfie groaned. “I keep going in circles. If he’s dead, where’s his body? If he’s not dead, where is he?”
“And what did his wife and Mrs. Hirkins see?”
“Precisely. And I’m still not certain, but too many strange things have been happening for me to think he just decided to walk off on his own.
“So yes, for the sake of argument: He’s dead. And if I accept he’s dead, I accept the rest of what Mrs. Hirkins saw, so he was likely murdered. Perhaps the murderer carried him off, or stuffed him up the chimney, or made him disappear into smoke. At this point I neither know nor care. Regardless, he was murdered and today someone tried to murder us. Why?”
As he spoke, Alfie had stilled his hand without thinking. Dominick butted his head against his knee like an enormous cat until Alfie began stroking his hair once again, pulling a little more meanly on the tangles this time.
Dominick all but purred. “Well, I do care. Bloody strange for a body to walk off on its own, and I won’t pretend otherwise. Stranger still that we can’t find where it went. And I’ll say I care a great deal less about why someone is trying to kill us if we can stop the who before he has another chance. McConnell’s death was his bad luck. Today was our good luck. I don’t want to see whose luck it is a third time.”
A sudden thought struck Alfie and his hands stilled again. This time he ignored Dominick’s nudging. “What if we’re wrong, and McConnell was the right victim in the first place?”
“Then what was today?” Dominick asked, but he didn’t seem to be discounting the idea. “Do you think he developed a taste for killing after strangling the captain? Or is it a second killer who just happened to show up at the same place and time as the first, only with eyes for us—or one of us, at least—instead? That sounds like a bigger coincidence even than those rocks ‘accidentally’ falling.”
“I don’t know,” Alfie admitted, but now that he’d had the idea, he couldn’t shake it. “I don’t like to think someone’s killing purely for the enjoyment of it. But if it is two persons, could today have been because of Captain McConnell’s death? Retribution of some sort? Could someone be blaming us for that?”
“Mrs. McConnell didn’t seem to,” Dominick said slowly. “But she was on the crag when the rocks happened, and those men are her men. There’s no chance she could have lifted that beam herself, but one of them might have on her orders.”
“Or he might have done it on his own, if he was loyal to the captain. He saw his opportunity when everyone was distracted at the scaffold and took it. Or perhaps even two of them together, one to cause the distraction and one to act. I should have taken better note of who was there. I suppose it’s not too late to go back.”
Dominick gave his injured leg the briefest squeeze and Alfie couldn’t fight back the hiss of pain.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Dominick said, his point made.
He craned his head over Alfie’s leg to get a look at the window. The sun was already beginning to set, its long rays creeping over the floor, drawing ever closer. “They’ll all be off by now and halfway to the village. We could ask Mrs. McConnell for a list of names…”
“But if she was part of it, she wouldn’t tell us the truth.”
“Janie then?”
“Unless she’s also switched allegiances.”
Alfie scrubbed his hands over his face. He could feel a headache coming on, his temples pounding in time with the throbbing in his leg. If only they were having this conversation in the library, or his office, or any other room in this bloody house with a properly stocked cellarette.
He slumped against the wall behind the chamber horse, the change in angle making it give another wheeze.
“I feel like we’re coming at this from the wrong end. Or that we’re either making too much of it or not enough.”
“How do you mean?”
Dominick wrapped his hands around the heel of one of Alfie’s boots, working it forward and back until he’d loosened it enough to slide off. Alfie hadn’t realised how much the damn thing had been hurting him until it was gone. Then Dominick had to ruin it by running his fingers along the underside of Alfie’s foot where he was far too ticklish and the bastard knew it. He jerked away and cuffed Dominick lightly upside the head for good measure.
“Arse. I mean, either today was a complete accident and we’re seeing conspiracies where there are none, or there’s more going on here and we’re only focussing on a small part of it.”
Dominick hummed and began work on Alfie’s second boot. “I see what you mean. All right, let’s have it out. First, just to get the ridiculous out of the way, let’s say it was an accident. What then?”
“Then the rocks fell on their own. Perhaps they were unbalanced by uneven ground or a gust of wind at just the wrong angle. They happened to drag the beam with them in a manner that looked suspicious but was actually quite natural. And we happened to be directly below them at just that time, and everyone else happened to be looking the other direction.”
Successfully removing the second boot, Dominick set them both out of the way, far more careful with Alfie’s things than his own. “Put all together it doesn’t sound bloody likely.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Alfie agreed. “What are you doing?”
“Getting rid of your socks next. If you were sitting as close to them as I am, you wouldn’t be asking why. Although I’m not sure I need to bother; they’ll walk off on their own if we give them a minute.”
Alfie rolled his eyes, but didn’t fight back when Dominick flung each sock across the room dramatically. One caught on a stand of dumb bells, which were decidedly more Dominick’s domain than Alfie’s. It would serve him right if it was forgotten there, only to spring out at him on some unsuspecting later date.
Then Dominick’s hands were around his foot, pressing too firmly to tickle, knuckles working deep into all the right places. Alfie took back every mean thought as his aches began to unwind under Dominick’s clever fingers.
Dominick chuckled and Alfie realised he hadn’t been keeping his noises to himself.
“Focus,” he said sternly and more to himself than Dominick. “So we agree it wasn’t an accident?”
Dominick squeezed his toes just a little too tightly before releasing a heavy breath. “No. It wasn’t.”
“Then not only is someone trying to kill us, but it likely has something to do with the captain’s death and subsequent disappearance—either as a consequence or continuation of the act. Let’s start there.”
Dominick shook his head. “No, start at the beginning. First was the sheep.”
“The sheep?”
“The sheep heads on the posts. At the time I hoped they were just a sick prank, but with everything else?”
“Not a chance. Even if I’m not the most popular person in the county at the moment, that’s a bit much just to make me feel unwelcome. But if you look at it as a threat…”
“It’s a damned good threat. Two sheep’s heads though. You think that was just for looks or is one for me too?”
Alfie had been relaxing under the rolling of Dominick’s hands working not only his sore foot, but the tight muscles of his calf as well, digging in his knuckles in a way that hurt even as it soothed. But the thought of Dominick being under threat was enough to make him tense again.
“I hope not,” he said honestly. “No matter what rumours may be spreading about the Earl of Balcarres, hopefully as far as anyone else knows, his ‘distant cousin’ is just that—his cousin.”
“And no one with noble blood has ever fucked his cousin.”
Alfie yanked Dominick’s hair. “I’m saying that with any luck, rumours haven’t actually spread about us at all. I’d think Gil, or Jarrett, or even Mrs. Hirkins would have warned us if they’d heard anything. And our own fears aside, we don’t really have any proof they have. Aside from what happened to both of us today. And the fact there were two heads.”
“Aside from all that,” Dominick said. Alfie didn’t need to see his face to know he was rolling his eyes. “I’d say that was plenty of proof someone noticed us and didn’t like what they saw.”
The idea was terrifying.
“I don’t suppose there’s any other reason someone would want both of us dead?”
“A toff’s a toff.” Dominick shrugged. “That was reason enough for the French. And a distant cousin to a toff is still a toff.”
Dominick grunted and gave Alfie’s leg a shake. “Ease up, you’re undoing all my work.”
Alfie tried, but it was hard to relax at the thought of the man he loved being in danger. His own safety was a worry, yes, but if someone killed him, it would very rapidly no longer be his concern. But if someone killed Dominick, it would destroy him for the rest of his life.
However, Dominick had made it very clear that the feeling went both ways and if Alfie ever allowed himself to be killed, Dominick would never forgive him.
He tried to push thoughts of either of their deaths from his mind. The best way to keep them from happening would be to figure out what the devil was going on.
“All right, it all started with the sheep. Unless you can think of anything strange before that.”
Dominick snorted and removed one hand from Alfie’s ankle to give an all-encompassing wave of, Look around. What about our lives isn’t strange?
“There was the farmer who wouldn’t look at you, but I don’t know if that’s the kind of strange we mean. Or Janie leaving food out for the spirits. Or me helping to deliver a baby. Or the three-legged cat in the barn. Or—”
“Yes, yes. I see your point. Of that list, I’d say only the farmer is possibly strange in a malevolent way, but even that might just be local hostility.”
“Local hostility’s gotten men killed before,” Dominick pointed out. “Although Janie thinks she found a way to solve that problem at least.”
“Oh?”
“A Scottish tradition she told me about. Called Samhain . At the end of October, everyone in the village douses the fires in their homes, then lights them all off the same bonfire for the next year. After a good deal of drinking, dancing, and free food, of course. Janie suggested we use up some of the felled wood to do the bonfire at Balcarres.
“It’s also supposed to keep the evil spirits away or some such, although she’s also been raiding the larder to keep her broonies fed. They’re getting more than just milk and bread now, so we should be expecting a boon from them soon. Unless Mrs. Hirkins catches her at it first.
“One way or another, hosting a Samhain bonfire might bring some of the workers back. And make them in the village less likely to think you’re up here cavorting with the Devil to bring down ruin on their heads.”
“Well, I’m not doing the second part, but I can’t guarantee the first.” Alfie tugged Dominick’s hair until his lover was forced to tilt his head back to look at him. “They say the Devil is very handsome. I may have been seduced.”
Dominick grinned and shook his head free. “If I was the Devil, we wouldn’t be locked away afraid of the servants seeing. I’d have you out in the front hall on that bear rug, doing whatever I damn well please to you and to hell with anyone who tried to stop me.”
The image was certainly visceral. Alfie would never be able to walk in his own front door again without seeing that rug and thinking of it. The thought of being out in the open like that, completely exposed and at Dominick’s mercy made him shiver.
“Are you certain you’re not the Devil?” he asked hoarsely.
Dominick grinned again, then turned his attentions back to Alfie’s leg, working his way up from his foot, digging into every painful knot until the tension finally unspooled, then moving onto the next.
It was heaven. It was hell. But if Dominick really was the Devil, Alfie had thrown his lot in with him far too long ago to change his mind now. He might as well enjoy his damnation.
“So you agree to the Samhain party?”
“Yes, you bastard. Whatever you want, as always.” Alfie hissed as Dominick’s hands found a particularly sore spot just behind his knee. The bright flash of pain was enough to momentarily clear his mind and remind him of exactly why his leg hurt so much. He’d been run off his feet because someone had tried to kill them today.
The thought was a sobering one.
“Do you think such a celebration is safe?” he asked. “There’s already one man dead. If the killer wished to strike again, which judging by our encounter today, he very much does, then we couldn’t be creating a better opportunity for him to do so.”
From the way Dominick tilted his head, Alfie could tell he was mulling the thought over.
At last Dominick spoke. “That’s a good point. Whoever they are, they wouldn’t need an excuse to get close. They’d be expected to show if the whole village was there. Add to that the darkness and drink and chaos of it all—never mind, it’s too much of a risk. I’ll tell Janie you said no.”
“Unless…” Alfie started, before trailing off in thought.
Dominick growled. “I don’t like that unless . It sounds like something that’s going to end with one of us shot, or poisoned, or disappeared.”
Alfie waved a hand Dominick couldn’t see. “ Unless , we use the celebration as an opportunity. As you said, all potential suspects will have to be there. We could keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Catch him before he strikes again.”
The risks of such an idea were obvious, but the reward of catching whoever killed Captain McConnell and tried to kill them couldn’t be ignored. Nor could the chance to show everyone that whatever was wrong with Balcarres wasn’t a spirit or a curse, but a flesh and blood man . And more importantly, a man who wasn’t Alfie.
How they were going to do all that in one night was a question he didn’t yet have an answer to, but they had a few weeks to come up with something.
“It’s worth the risk.”
He rested his hand on the back of Dominick’s neck, feeling the tension there. As his touch, Dominick bowed his head, but Alfie knew better than to take that as a gesture of acceptance.
“We’ll be careful,” he continued. “Stay in eyesight at all times, no following strangers off into the woods, no accepting anything to drink from comely local maids. And it doesn’t need to be just us, we can ask others we trust to help.”
Dominick huffed out a humourless laugh. “And who do we trust?”
Alfie didn’t answer him at once. The chill of the room began to curl around his bare feet. The bright warmth of Dominick’s hands, wrapped loosely around either of Alfie’s ankles now, thumbs rubbing absently against the juts of bone, only made the cold worse by contrast.
The sun had finally set, but the night must be a clear one because the silver glow of moonlight came in through the windows. It was barely bright enough to see by and washed everything in an uneven grey. Even the gold of Dominick’s hair was dimmed, the shine of it tarnished in a way that made Alfie uneasy.
Who did they trust?
“Not Janie,” he said at last, breaking the unbearable stillness. “Not if this was her idea. If it is a trap, I won’t make it that much easier for her.”
Dominick hummed in agreement, but then asked, “You think she could do it? Not just if she’s strong enough, but you think she’s capable of killing a man?”
“I don’t know,” Alfie answered honestly. “And in fairness, I’m not sure she’s physically strong enough either, but I’m not going to take that chance. Samhain celebration or not, someone tried to kill us and she was there when it happened.”
“The same is true of Mrs. McConnell,” Dominick offered. “Not only that, she found her husband’s body. Either of them, even if they couldn’t lift that beam themselves, could have had one of the workers do it and we’ve seen women kill before. Still, I can’t really see either of them cutting the heads off sheep just to warn us off.”
Alfie couldn’t either. Not wide-eyed Janie, her curls fluttering around her as she sawed through bone. Mrs. McConnell wiping blood from her face, her sensible skirts soaked red as she lifted the head aloft before slamming it down onto the gatepost.
He shook the visions away. As impossible as they seemed, he’d underestimated women before and nearly lost his life because of it.
“Surely someone would have commented on their absence,” he offered weakly. “Captain McConnell certainly, or Mrs. Finley if it was Janie. I don’t know how long it takes to behead a sheep, but someone would have noticed the blood if nothing else.”
Dominick hummed again, noncommittal. “I might trust Mrs. Finley. I can’t imagine what she’d have to do with any of this. Same for Agnes and Mrs. Hirkins. I don’t doubt they could , mind you. But if they wanted us dead, we would be. And if they had reason to kill Captain McConnell, he likely deserved it. We could have them keep watch at Samhain.”
“No,” said Alfie immediately. “I won’t put any of them in harm's way.”
The idea was unthinkable.
Dominick let out a long sigh and tilted his head back. Alfie widened his legs and let Dominick’s head fall between his thighs, resting on the leather of the chamber horse seat and looking up at Alfie.
Under other circumstances, it would be quite the view. Alfie couldn’t resist at least leaning forward until he could run his hands over Dominick’s shoulders, the wool of his coat giving way to the silk of his waistcoat, his shirt hidden beneath a wilted cravat. Idly, he began picking at the knot of the cravat, Dominick tilting his head back even further to let him.
It was an unbearably vulnerable position and Dominick put himself in it without a thought, trusting Alfie completely. That trust—that love—made Alfie swallow hard, the weight of Dominick’s ring on his hand feeling heavier than ever. But it wasn’t the weight of a burden dragging him down. It was the weight of an anchor, holding him safe and secure whenever the world was trying to dash him to pieces.
Dominick smiled softly up at him, then said, “You’re such an arse sometimes.”
Alfie squawked and tugged the cravat more forcefully. So much for love and trust.
Dominick’s smile turned to a full grin. “Such an arse. Won’t put little old ladies or new mothers in the path of a killer. So be it. What about the babe himself? We could have James and Davey keep armed lookout.”
Alfie seriously considered tightening the cravat around Dominick’s throat, only barely deciding to unwind it instead, tossing it aside.
“Don’t even jest about that.”
Dominick turned his head and pressed a quick kiss to Alfie’s thigh in apology.
“You’re going to have the same problem with any of them, you know. If something happened to Graham and Davey was left without a father, you’d never forgive yourself. Gil would never forgive you if something happened to Jarrett. God knows why. And it’s my throat Jarrett would slit if you let something happen to Gil. I still can’t believe it took you so long to notice, by the way.”
Alfie groaned. “What about Mr. Howe? Can I feed him to the wolves?”
“You could, but you’d find some reason not to. The same with Frank and Martin. Likely you’d see it as a waste for them to have come all the way up from London only to be killed. Of course, that’s assuming you trust any of them not to be the killer in the first place.”
Alfie hesitated. “I’d like to…”
“I’d ‘like to’ too,” Dominick said, more solemn than before. “But I don’t ‘like to’ enough to bet your life on it. Or mine.”
“Then that just leaves all the new servants, most of whom’s names I don’t even know yet, not to mention the gardeners and the labourers up at the folly.”
“And don’t forget, all of these things happened outside, or near enough with the open door when the captain was killed. It might all be someone from the village we’ve never even met. Or it could be Carnbee or, bloody hell, even Madam Carnbee. They were here the night before McConnell was found dead, remember. Carnbee hates most everyone in this whole bloody manor. And if he caught that wife of his getting up to no good with Captain McConnell in the drawing room? Well.”
Alfie groaned and leaned even further forward until his forehead was resting against Dominick’s. The murderer could quite literally be anyone and they didn’t have the faintest idea of where to begin. They didn’t know exactly when the murder had even taken place, or why. Hell, they didn’t even have a body .
“We don’t have a choice, do we?” he whispered. “We need more to find out whoever is behind it. If you have a better idea than this Samhain one, I’ll take it. But we have to do something. He’s targeting our home, Nick.”
Dominick raised himself up enough to brush his nose against Alfie’s. It was a silly, childish gesture, but the sweetness of it made tears prick the corners of Alfie’s eyes.
“We won’t let him,” said Dominick. His voice was low but fierce. “We’ll use the party to tempt him up, but we’ll be the ones laying the trap. We’ve weeks to figure something out. Between your toff education and what we learned in the workhouse, I’d wager my money on us any day over some coward who runs away after doing his dirty work. Wouldn’t you?”
“Any day,” Alfie agreed. “Including Samhain.”
He stayed curled like that over Dominick until the strain on the muscles in his back became too tortuous to ignore. He sat upright with a groan, hearing the pop of his spine as he did. Dominick didn’t seem inclined to move, just looked up at him, an inscrutable little smile on his lips.
“Come on,” said Alfie at last. “We’d best go get cleaned up for supper.”
“Fuck supper.”
After everything, Alfie had to laugh. “I beg your pardon?”
“Fuck supper,” Dominick said again. “We can have plates sent up later. What’s waiting for us at the supper table? Only more apologies from Mrs. McConnell and Gil’s concern when he drags the story out of us. Then his complaints when we tell him he has less than a month to organise a party for the whole village. After the day we’ve had, do you really want to face that?”
Just thinking about it was exhausting.
Alfie slumped back down on the chamber horse. “I suppose we can excuse ourselves and have plates sent up, just this once.”
“Later,” Dominick chided. “I said we’ll have them sent up later . For now, we’ve got a locked door, a reason to be shut away, and I’ve only just gotten your socks off. And I’ll need more off than just my cravat for what I’m thinking. A lot more off.”
Suddenly, Alfie didn’t find himself exhausted at all. He licked his dry lips. “More than just a cravat, you say? You can’t mean your coat as well?”
Dominick’s upside-down grin turned wicked. “That sounds like a challenge.”