Chapter 23
D ominick watched the colour drain from Mrs. McConnell’s face.
He had no idea what Alfie was talking about, but from her reaction, he was absolutely right.
For a moment, he thought Mrs. McConnell might faint again as she had when she’d discovered her husband’s body in the drawing room. She hadn’t actually discovered his body though, had she? Not if Doctor Mills was right and the captain had only been dead a few days.
None of it made any sense to him, but if Alfie had worked it out, Dominick trusted that whatever conclusion he’d come to was the correct one.
Mrs. McConnell gathered herself up and straightened her shoulders. “I suppose I’d better explain.”
Then she turned and walked back into her chambers. Alfie went to follow, only to be stopped again by Janie.
“Sir!” She squeaked, looking shocked at her own courage. “That’s her bedchamber! It isn’t proper!”
“Damn proper, a baby is missing.” Alfie growled, then made his way past the maid.
“Come along, Janie,” said Dominick. “You can chaperone. And the more of us who find out what’s going on, the better.”
Janie didn’t look convinced, but Dominick didn’t have time for her crisis of morals. As Alfie said, James was missing.
The guest room was large and when Dominick entered, Mrs. McConnell was sitting in a chair by the fire. She waved them both towards the settee opposite her. Alfie remained standing, however, an angry scowl on his face, and Dominick followed his lead.
“May I ask what gave it away?” Mrs. McConnell said at last. To Dominick’s surprise, when she spoke, her accent was no longer a bland, unplaceable, unremarkable English, but distinctly Irish.
Alfie nodded, as if he’d suspected as much. “Mrs. Hirkins said that when you found the body in the drawing room, you shouted, ‘My husband!’ Yet when we pulled the captain from the fire, you shouted his name. Clyde. Not remarkable on its own, perhaps, only none of the rest of it made sense. A disappearing body, a man who’d been assumed dead for weeks only being a few days deceased, your lack of mourning after the first ‘death’ compared to your reaction last night…
“And then the things no one even suspected were related. Janie’s broonies’ sudden increase in appetite for one, but I imagine there’s more. I assume that’s how he kept himself fed all these weeks. Was it your idea for Janie to start leaving them more than just bread?”
Dominick had almost forgotten Janie was in the room until she gave a small gasp, as if the revelation that a man had been eating food meant for the fairies was the worst of it.
“None of it made any sense with just one husband,” Alfie continued, “but as soon as I had the idea there might be two—that Clyde and ‘my husband’ were two separate men—it explained everything. Well, nearly.”
It explained damned all to Dominick. He forced himself to focus on the conversation at hand and not that he’d been the one to suggest the thought of having two of his husband—or as close a thing to his husband that Alfie could be—just that morning and under what circumstances. Bloody hell, if that was what had given Alfie the idea, he’d never be able to explain it in court.
Mrs. McConnell’s hands were clenched tightly in her lap, but to her credit, she kept her head up. “It might be best if I start at the beginning.”
Dominick began to protest, but she held a hand up. “I’ll be brief. But if you’re going to rescue the babe, you need to know what sort of man you’re dealing with. And exactly what he’s capable of.”
She took a deep breath. “I was sentenced to transportation in 1806. My crime is irrelevant now, save that it was enough to earn me a seven-year sentence. After that I would be free, if you could call it that. Trapped on the other side of the world with no money and no way to get home.
“After an eight-month journey in the dark, stinking hold of a ship, packed in amongst the bodies of my fellow unfortunates, we arrived in Botany Bay and I was assigned my duties. At first, I felt lucky. I’d escaped further detention or being put to work at a prison factory and was instead assigned to a farm. My family were from County Galway, so I thought at least the work would be familiar to me. I hadn’t accounted for the farmer, Daniel Rutherford.”
Mrs. McConnell stopped here, as if just saying the man’s name caused her pain. The knuckles of her clasped hands had gone white with strain, but she continued on.
“Rutherford was also a convict. By the time I arrived in Australia, he’d already been there over a decade. He’d been on one of the first transport ships and knew how to survive in the bush better than any other white man. His crimes in England had earned him a life sentence. I soon came to find out what those crimes were.”
Dominick could guess. Usually, petty thieves were sentenced to seven years, horse thieves to fourteen. Only rapists and killers received a life sentence.
“Are you familiar with tickets of leave?” Mrs. McConnell asked.
Both Alfie and Dominick shook their heads. Janie sat down heavily on Mrs. McConnell’s bed.
“A convict may earn a ticket of leave for good behaviour. They aren’t pardoned, but they have greater privileges, such as owning their own businesses and keeping the money they earn. In Rutherford’s case, he was allowed a distant patch of land to farm, far from any soldiers or guards to keep him in line. He was also allowed to take a wife.
“At first, he was charming, but it didn’t take me long to realise that by marrying him, I had turned my seven-year sentence into a lifetime of misery. Not that it would matter, as I doubted I would even survive seven years. Then after two years of hell, the most extraordinary thing happened. A man stumbled out of the bush, completely lost and near death. My Clyde.”
She smiled softly to herself and Dominick couldn’t help glancing at Alfie. His lover still had the fierce energy that had propelled him since they learned of James’ disappearance, but he was leaning on his cane as if weighed down by her story. Dominick wanted to tell him to sit, but before he could, Mrs. McConnell resumed her tale.
“The rest is much as we told you that night at dinner. Except I didn’t see Clyde just once more, but again and again. Over the next year, Clyde and I saw each other frequently as he surveyed the land around the farm. It became impossible to hide my husband’s cruelty from him, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“Following the Rum Rebellion, Clyde was disillusioned by the actions of those he’d devoted his career to serving. So when he was recalled in 1810, he had no issue with breaking the very laws he’d been sent to uphold. He sold his commission to the first man in Port Jackson to want it. As a civilian, he used the money for two tickets back to Scotland, smuggling me aboard as his wife.
“We did fall in love on the journey, that much was true. I didn’t expect it, or even want it, but it happened. We were married as soon as my feet touched Scottish soil.”
“But your first husband wasn’t dead,” Alfie said firmly.
“We didn’t think that mattered. He was serving a life sentence in Australia and we were here. And we were happy. Until two years ago. There was an article in the paper about escaped convicts having stolen a ship from Botany Bay. Against all odds, they sailed it to the Dutch East Indies, where they disappeared into the crowds. None captured.
“The article had a list of names. As soon as I saw Daniel Rutherford , I knew he was coming for me. For months, we looked over our shoulders, going from project to project, never knowing when one of the new faces around us would turn out to be his.
“I thought I saw a glimpse of him in Edinburgh and was terrified. The very next day, we received your letter about building the folly and believed it was a sign. We were tired of running. We thought we could lay a trap for him here and be done with him once and for all.”
A memory came to Dominick of a quiet evening by the fire months ago.
“That was why you put the advertisement in all the papers! The one thanking Lord Crawford for the job at Balcarres House and listing exactly where it was. You wanted him to find you!”
Worse than that, they’d wanted Rutherford to find them here . At Balcarres, Dominick’s home and home to the only other people in the world he gave a damn about. The McConnells had lured Rutherford here, knowing exactly how dangerous he was, and said nothing to warn any of them.
Anger rose up in Dominick. He clenched his fists, hissing as the bandages tightened around his blistered skin. Mrs. McConnell’s next words only fanned the flames higher.
“We also used both our names and put the advertisement in papers all over Britain, so there would be no chance he could miss it. It was only a matter of time. Then one night, I heard a coo-ee and knew he was here. He didn’t just want us dead. He wanted us scared, wanted us to know he was coming. That’s what the coo-ee was—his warning and his promise.”
“So were the sheep,” Dominick realised.
Mrs. McConnell frowned. “The sheep?”
“Several days before whatever happened in the drawing room happened. I found two sheep heads on the gateposts, but got rid of them before anyone else saw.”
“Pity,” she said, her tone flat. “Had we known, we would have had more warning. But yes, I have no doubt that was him. Who knows how long he’d been watching us before making his presence known. Rutherford’s victim had fought back, leaving him with a scar down his face, but I believe the wickedness Madam Carnbee saw in his face at the window had been there long before that.”
The scarred mask of the night before came to mind, as did the cruel face of the man beneath it.
“Coo-ee?” Janie asked faintly. She was gripping the banister of the bed, but Dominick couldn’t tell if it was from fear or excitement.
Mrs. McConnell looked at her a moment, then cupped her hands to her lips and threw her head back. Dominick jumped as a call filled the room, loud enough to scare the birds from their branches outside the windows.
“COOOOOOOoooo EEEeeeeeeeeee!”
There was something haunting about the call, a mournfulness to the way it echoed. By the time it faded away, the hairs on Dominick’s arms were standing on end.
“The tribes in Australia use it to announce their presence when entering someone else’s land. It can carry for miles. It was useful on the farm, or for locating lost surveyors.”
“I heard that,” Alfie whispered. “The night before the drawing room. And I thought I heard it again last night too.”
Mrs. McConnell’s face went hard.
“A warning,” she repeated. “And now a promise fulfilled.”
“What happened in the drawing room?” asked Dominick.
“We set a trap. Clyde woke early and made a great show of himself being in the drawing room, opening the doors to the terrace, fussing around and acting completely obvious to draw Rutherford’s eye. Then he hid. Rutherford is one of the strongest men I’ve ever met. We knew there was no way Clyde could best him in a fight or even the two of us together. And we couldn’t shoot him without alerting the household. But if we could just get a lasso around his neck while he was distracted, we could stop him for good without anyone being the wiser.
“I was supposed to come in after Clyde had time to hide and act as bait while he lay in wait, but I hadn’t counted on getting lost in this maze of a house. I was late, so I panicked and asked Mrs. Hirkins for help. I tried to stop her from opening the drawing room door, but it was too late. The moment it opened and I saw Rutherford’s body on the floor, I screamed. Even though I’d been preparing for it, seeing him again after all these years, even dead, was too horrible.
“Then the curtains moved. Clyde hadn’t been expecting anyone but me to come in and was trying to hide himself in them, but I could clearly see his boots sticking out the bottom. Mrs. Hirkins was still staring at the body, but I only had seconds before the shock wore off and she saw him too and would know he’d committed the murder. So I pretended to faint.
“The moment she ran for help, I was up again. We’d planned to bury him in one of the new garden beds before the workers arrived. There had been so much digging already, who would notice if one of the holes had been filled in? But we didn’t have time, so we just shoved his body into the nearest wood pile, intending to deal with it later.
“But that still left the problem of Mrs. Hirkins. She’d seen the body and heard me say ‘my husband.’ I knew the household would be arriving any moment, so I told Clyde to hide in the woods.
“It was all I could think of. If Mrs. Hirkins heard me call out for my husband but the body was that of another man, everyone would assume I’d meant Clyde was the killer. But if there was no body, then everyone would think it odd, but assume he was the one dead. He could hide until the folly was completed—one last monument in his name—then we’d reunite afterwards, take a ship to America this time and start new lives with new names. That his body was missing would be a mystery, but I’d already heard enough stories about cursed Balcarres. In time, his disappearance would be put down to just another strange happening.”
“You thought of all this in the time it took Mrs. Hirkins to fetch us?” If the circumstances weren’t so terrible, Dominick would be impressed.
She fixed him with a look. Her intelligence had always been clear in her eyes, but there’d been something in them that Dominick only now realised he recognised. It was the look of someone who’d had no one else to rely on for far too long and had endured terrible things in that time.
His fists had kept him alive in his dark time, but such a small woman wouldn’t have had that option. She’d have had nothing but her wits to protect her and she’d honed those into her weapon, as quick and sharp as any blade.
“No,” she said. “In that time, I thought of it all and explained it to Clyde. There would be little chance to speak after. I couldn’t risk sneaking out, but as long as he avoided the searchers that first day, he had a key to the folly and could stay there at night. And of course, he had his pencil, so he did leave me a few notes to let me know he was all right. We couldn’t risk any more.
“I thought he’d be safe until the work was done. I wanted to finish Captain Clyde McConnell’s last great work before we both disappeared. If I hadn’t been so prideful and we’d left immediately, the only truly good man I’ve ever met would still be alive.”
She unclenched her hands and smoothed down her skirts.
“Please, Your Lordship,” she said, and for the first time, her voice wavered. “I know you won’t still employ me after all this, but please, we’re so close to completing the folly. It’s his finest work. Please finish it. And his plans for the gardens are truly spectacular. Janie has a rare talent for plants and she knows those plans as well as I do, the gardens would thrive under her care.”
“Thank you,” Janie said softly. From her blush, she was still no better at accepting a compliment than she’d ever been.
“You’re in no place to be making requests” Alfie said coldly. “You’re an escaped convict and you knowingly brought danger to this house. Employ you? I should report you to the magistrate. Finish the story. Where is James?”
Dominick had never seen Alfie like this. But usually it was Alfie himself who was in peril, or at worst, Dominick. Both were grown men who’d faced danger before and come out the other side. Now, because of this woman, James was in the hands of a ruthless killer.
Where Alfie was cold, Dominick was boiling with rage. If anything happened to James before Mrs. McConnell got to the damned point, Magistrate Carnbee would be the least of her worries.
Chastened, she continued. “I made it back to the drawing room just in time to feign unconsciousness.”
“Not quite,” Alfie pointed out. “Mrs. Hirkins can be forgiven for assuming the body on the floor was the captain, she’d only seen him at a distance. But you first ‘fainted’ when she opened the door. You should have been outside it, yet we found you in the centre of the room. We should have known then.”
Despite her circumstances, she glared at Alfie as if he was the one who’d done wrong by daring to point out she wasn’t as clever as she thought she was.
“Regardless. I thought my first husband dead in the wood pile and my second safe in the folly. After the rockfall, I began to wonder, but I convinced myself it was simply an unfortunate accident. Then I started to doubt, because if anyone could survive off the land for this long without anyone noticing, it would be Rutherford.
“So I checked the wood pile, but when I didn’t find the body, I told myself Clyde had taken it and buried it as we’d originally planned. When I saw Rutherford last night, I knew what a dreadful mistake I’d made even before the bonfire was lit.
“He didn’t come all the way from Australia because he wants me dead, but because he wants to punish me. He’s a monster. He could have killed Clyde at any time in the last month, but instead he stalked him without him even knowing. He watched from the woods, waiting to strike until Clyde’s death would cause the most pain.
“He killed the man I love because I dared to leave him, and strangled Clyde for having the audacity to try to do the same to him. If only I’d found Mrs. Hirkins a minute later, Clyde wouldn’t have had to stop and hide before the deed was fully done.
“I heard my husband again last night. Another coo-ee, this one in triumph. If he does kill me, it won’t be until after he’s destroyed everything I love.”
At that, she fell silent. She’d been the target all along, never Alfie or Dominick. And now a man was dead and an innocent child was missing.
“Why James?” Dominick could barely get the words out. “James has nothing to do with you. Now Captain McConnell is dead, Rutherford should have come for you, not him.”
She had the gall to shrug. “I don’t know. Opportunity, perhaps? As I said, this house is a maze, but the kitchen opens directly onto the lawn.”
“I think… I think I might know.”
Everyone in the room turned to Janie.
She shrunk back, then lifted her chin and said, “If Mr. Rutherford was watching from the woods, he might have got the wrong impression. Most houses, servants care for the ladies’ babies, even for the guests. And of course, no servants have babies themselves. Captain and Mrs. McConnell were here all the time, even before they were offered a room. Since they’re the only married couple in the house, he might have assumed James was their son and took him to punish her?”
Janie said the last part as a question, but Dominick had never been more sure of anything.
He clenched his fists again and the pain from his hands was nothing compared to the fear in his heart. Sweet little James, Agnes’ son, Mrs. Hirkins’ great-grandchild, had been taken by a man who’d left his victim in a woodpile waiting to be lit, knowing the entire village would see his terrible handiwork.
Alfie’s voice was as sharp as ice. “Damn you to hell. You lured him to us. A madman, willing to cross seas for vengeance, and you put advertisements in every newspaper telling him to come to our home. And you still haven’t told us anything useful. Where would he take James?”
Mrs. McConnell looked on the verge of tears again, but Dominick didn’t feel an ounce of pity.
“I don’t know.”
At her non-answer, something in Dominick snapped. He struck out, his hand finding some ornamental trinket. He didn’t even notice the pain as it soared through the air, smashing into satisfying little pieces against the wall. Janie shrieked. If it had gone two inches to the left, it would have shattered the window and gone soaring down into the McConnells’ precious garden.
Mrs. McConnell cowered and he heard a worried, “Nick?” from Alfie, but he ignored them both.
The window.
Suddenly, Rutherford’s plan was nightmarishly clear.
“He wants to punish you by making you watch him destroy everything you love. Not just your husband, but also his legacy. Alfie, I know where he’s taken James.”
The morning was bright and clear. From Mrs. McConnell’s window, the view looked out over the gardens. If Dominick turned his head a little to the right, he’d be able to see all the way to the sea. But if he looked left, the forest thickened, then began to climb upwards until it reached the crag. And on the top of the crag sat Captain McConnell’s finest work. His legacy.
The folly.