CHAPTER 14
After buying Eva her pistol, Gareth made a little tour of Langdon’s End. He stopped at the White Horse. Erasmus was there, as expected, and greeted him with a toothy smile. Gareth gestured him over to a table, ordered two ales, and informed him of the situation with Eva.
Erasmus displayed the same shock Harold had. It appeared genuine, which meant Harold had been good to his word, even when it came to his friend. Better, actually. Not only had Harold not revealed Eva’s presence in his home this morning, he had not even spoken of what sent her there.
“It musta happened yesterday,” Erasmus said. “I walked by every morning she was gone and saw nothing out of sorts on the property. Didn’t go this morning because Harold said she was back when I passed him in town.”
“As you can imagine, she is very afraid.” Gareth patted the wrapped bundle he had set on the table. “She asked me to buy her a pistol. If it makes her feel safer, that alone is a good reason to do so.”
“Has she ever used one?” Erasmus looked incredulous.
“She will know how soon enough. I want you to keep your ears open. Let me know if you come across any indications of who did this. Such types often take to boasting, especially when in their cups.”
Erasmus nodded. “I will tell Sir Thomas too.”
“Tell me first. The magistrate can have what is left of the scoundrel after I am done with him.”
He set a coin for the ale on the table and left the tavern.
Considering how Erasmus liked to talk, within hours it would be well known that Miss Russell now kept a pistol in her house, one that she knew how to use.
He also assumed that word would spread that Mr. Fitzallen protected the lady and would not wait for a court to mete out justice.
Both bits of information might help if that housebreaking had been the work of men grabbing the opportunity to steal. Another possibility had entered Gareth’s mind when he saw the deliberate destruction of Eva’s paintings, however. Before he left the town he made one more stop.
Mr. Trevor stood to greet him when he entered the architect’s office. A bit of brandy was offered, and they settled into chairs near the window.
“The materials for the roof should be here this week,” Trevor said. “Once work starts, it will not take long.”
Gareth allowed a few more minutes of conversation about Albany Lodge’s improvements before moving to his real reason for visiting.
“Miss Russell’s house was entered while she was gone. You will hear of it soon if you have not already.”
“Why that house? She has nothing of value.”
“No one seeing that house would assume it contained nothing of value. It is a handsome gentry home. This is no longer an isolated village but a growing town, and all sorts pass through, I expect.”
“This is dreadful. Bold. This is not a place where people bolt their doors, or grow suspicious of every face. At least it has not been such a place in the past. I fear this will change that.”
“No doubt it will, if the details become known. After finding nothing, the intruders took out their anger by methodically destroying what little was there. Floorboards, walls, furniture, crockery—room by room, her possessions were turned into debris.”
“Thank God she was not there, nor her sister. It isn’t safe, two women alone, living in the shadow of a city like Birmingham— She must be terrified.”
“Not so much terrified as furious. Although, having seen the destruction, I cannot avoid the thought that terrifying her might have been the goal. A few details seemed unnecessarily cruel, and personal.”
Trevor stood, flushed from his alarm at the idea. “Surely not. Who could want to harm her? She has no enemies. The townspeople love and respect her.”
“The old ones do. The new ones hardly know her.” Gareth studied Trevor, who now gazed out the window while he accommodated this new notion. “How badly does your client want that house and land?”
Trevor turned on him, stunned. “What are you implying?”
Gareth just looked at him.
“My client is a respectable businessman, Fitzallen. He is worth seven thousand a year due to hard work and shrewd dealings the last ten years. What you suggest is insulting to him, and uncalled for.”
Gareth stood and faced Trevor squarely. “I’ll wager you know almost nothing about this man, other than the face he chooses to show you and the size of his income.
He is wealthy from trade, which is hardly damning, but ten years is fast success in any business, so he may be the sort to knock over anything and anyone in his way.
She won’t sell him what he wants, so perhaps he tried to persuade her by making her feel unsafe in her own home. ”
“Your accusation is outrageous. You do not have any evidence of this, yet you malign a man—”
“Who is he? Tell me and I will find out soon enough if I am correct.”
“I’ll be damned first. You are no more a gentleman than he. You, too, may be the sort to knock over anyone in his way, for all I know. I’ll not have you accusing my client when this was probably a random crime.”
Gareth set his brandy glass on a table. “If this was a random crime, there will be nothing more. If there is any further attempt to frighten Miss Russell, however, I will be back. If you do not give me his name then, I will learn it another way so he and I can have a conversation.”
He walked to the door.
“You are out of your depth, Fitzallen. He has lawyers, the best that money can buy. They will ruin you financially if you impugn him.”
“I have a better one, and since he is family he will not cost me a shilling. He is also the sort to show no restraint with men who threaten women. Tell your client to be glad I am the one suspicious of him, and not my brother.”
* * *
The pistol felt less heavy in her hands now. Not nearly as leaden as when she first picked it up and clumsily followed Gareth’s direction on how to load the ball and powder. Nor did she find it difficult to hold steady, the way she had the first two times she fired.
She aimed at the thick, large wooden board Gareth had brought and set against the garden wall. “Now?”
“Whenever you are ready.”
She fired. The crack assaulted her ears. Smoke rose from the end of the barrel. She did not startle this time, although she did not think she would ever grow accustomed to the noise.
She peered at the board, seeking the ball’s destination. Gareth eased the pistol out of her grasp.
“Much better, Eva.”
“Really? I do not see where it hit.”
“You did not hit the board as such.”
Her gaze shifted to the wall. A third black dot now decorated it, near two others. The wall might be stone, but lead balls did not bounce off. Rather they embedded themselves, eternal reminders of her poor marksmanship.
“How can you say much better when I still don’t come close to a board as big as a barn door?”
“You were closer this time.”
“By an inch!” She took the pistol back, sat down, and lifted the bag of powder. “Are you a good shot?”
“You will not meet many who are better.”
He did not say that with pride or conceit. He merely answered a question. She tapped powder into the pistol. “Did it take you long to become so good?”
He sat beside her and watched her load. “Every summer I spent a few weeks with my father, right up the road at the lodge. It was the only time I spent with him to speak of. The summer I was twelve, he taught me to shoot. He made me practice every day, for hours. I came to hate that pistol. Here was this precious time, and I was alone in that garden, firing over and over.”
“Did he know you hated it?”
“He knew. Finally, when my aim was sure, and I could reload fast, he told me that with my birth, the day would come when men challenged me, or insulted me and I had to challenge them, but if it were known that I was a crack shot, fewer men would take that step. A man known to always hit his aim is not a man with whom other men want to duel.”
She finished loading, then cradled the pistol in her hands. “Was he correct? Did knowing how to shoot well spare you those challenges?”
He took the pistol from her. “Mostly. Not always in the manner he expected.” He raised the weapon and sighted the board, then lowered it again. “It probably kept my brother from killing me, though.”
She looked at him in surprise. He gazed down at the pistol.
“One of those summers, my oldest brother came to visit. I think our father had begun to suspect what was in Percy by then, but he never guessed the whole of it, and I think he was pleased to see Percy make this gesture of acceptance toward me. One day my father was gone, riding the property, and Percy offered to teach me how duels are done. He explained it all, and we acted it out, the pacing off—all of it. And suddenly I was facing him and we both had loaded pistols in our hands.” He looked at her.
“I looked at him, and I knew, I just knew, that he intended there to be an unfortunate accident.”
“You are sure?” The idea stunned her. “Your own brother?”
“I was sure. He was standing right below the outer branches of a tree, and one of those branches all but touched his head. So I aimed for that branch, hit it, and it snapped and fell on him. It startled him enough that I had time to reload. Percy looked at that branch, then at me, and decided the dueling lesson was over.”
He stood and handed her the pistol. “I was fifteen years old. He was twenty. Now, only one more. Light is waning quickly. You will never learn to shoot in the dark.”
She wished there were more time today. She needed to learn this right away.
She hated how vulnerable she felt now in her own home.
While Gareth had gone to town today, she spent the time cleaning the destruction, but all the while she listened for anyone coming up the lane or passing near the garden.