Chapter Seventeen
Dear God. What is happening?
On a whim, Caroline followed the servants’ stairs to the kitchen.
What she found as she poked around was simply horrible.
One of the footmen had been stabbed in the thigh.
He’d gone unconscious in a chair at the communal table, but he’d had the wherewithal to tourniquet his wound.
After grabbing a few rags from a basket of clean ones, she went over to him, pressed a couple over the wound and then secured them with a third tied about his leg.
Behind a worktable, she found the cook, out cold, but with no other injuries. In a broom closet, she located the butler, who sported a bump on his head that was bleeding, and he was disoriented enough that he’d be of no use in helping her.
“What happened?” she asked in a whisper as she helped him into the kitchen and guided him into a chair.
“That damned groom,” he said in a shaking voice. “The one married to Miss Brown. He’s gone mad.”
Knots of worry pulled in her belly. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” She glanced about. “Where are the housekeeper and the other maids?”
“I don’t know. When the groom came down here and threatened us with a pistol, we tried to neutralize him, but he overpowered us quite handily.” He pressed one of the clean rags to his injury. “Did you come with the major?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Stay with the footman. I’m going to join the major upstairs and hopefully rescue Lady Withington.”
If luck was with her, Felix would have the situation well in hand by now.
After checking various rooms on the lower level, she found the housekeeper bound and gagged in a chair in the rear parlor.
“Oh, dear.” Rushing into the darkened room where the scent of pine assailed her nostrils, she quickly undid the rope and removed the gag from the older woman’s mouth. “Did Mr. Brown do this to you?”
“Yes.” The housekeeper nodded. Her mobcap was askew on her gray curls and her skin a bit ashen, but otherwise, she seemed clear headed.
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.” She stared with wide eyes at Caroline. “They mean to harm Lady Withington and take her babe. I heard them talking while putting the finishing touches on the Christmastide decorations.”
“I feared as much.” With a bit of haste, she escorted the housekeeper to the door. “We need to go rescue them. Has Lady Withington gone into labor?”
“Yes.” The older woman nodded. “A few hours ago. Once Betsy discovered that, she went insane, I think. And what is more, she isn’t pregnant herself.”
Caroline nodded. “I suspected that. What happened that she revealed herself?”
As they mounted the stairs, the housekeeper huffed.
“I suppose she forgot to stay in character.” She shrugged.
“As she hustled my lady into the drawing room, the pillow beneath her dress tumbled out. Wasn’t even ashamed about it.
Then somehow she got hold of a knife and started threatening us.
I’m afraid poor William was stabbed as he tried to stop her. ”
“So I saw. I left the butler with him. Hopefully we can secure the scene and have a constable in as well as a doctor.” But worry mounted in her belly. With no sign of Mr. Brown, they might be walking into a trap.
“Well, there are two of us,” the housekeeper said, “and I’ll be damned if I let some flighty maid with a penchant for lying get the better of us.
” Determination threaded through the older woman’s voice.
“None of us were fond of Lord Withington, but what the maid and her husband are doing is beyond sanity.”
If Mr. Brown had a pistol, it meant he could only shoot one of them. Still, she wouldn’t let him have the upper hand. Unfortunately, as they both stood at the partially opened door, peering in, the sound of a pistol cocking echoed in the silence behind her.
“Just couldn’t leave well enough alone, eh Miss Ives?” The cold nose of the pistol pressed against the side of her neck. “Get inside, the both of you, or I’ll put a ball through the housekeeper’s back.”
A whimper from the housekeeper further stretched Caroline’s nerves. “No need for rudeness, Mr. Brown. We’ll do as you ask. Put your pistol away.”
“I don’t think I can do that.” He prodded her in the back with the nose of the pistol until she and the housekeeper entered the room. “I’m more afraid of my wife than I am you.”
The scene inside the drawing room had her catching her breath.
Lady Withington was on the floor in what appeared to be a hard labor.
Sweat dampened her forehead, making her hair cling to her skin.
Felix knelt beside her. Every so often, he’d encourage her with words or the squeeze of her hand.
His greatcoat was gone, his jacket was off, and he’d rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to the elbows.
Though there was no time to fully appreciate how he looked, she frowned, for Betsy stood far too close to both with a knife in hand.
Traces of blood were obvious on the blade in the candlelight.
“Tell me she’s close,” he said to Betsy as he shoved the housekeeper onto a chair. “Stay there if you know what’s good for you.”
The maid glanced at her husband. “Her pains are coming closer now, but it’s taking far too long.”
He nodded. “We can’t wait for too much longer. The servants won’t be silent or stationary, and now we have yet another interloper.”
That’s when Felix glanced over his shoulder.
He’d moved to the widow’s head. With his legs on either side of her, he held her upper body and head against his chest and shoulder to help with support.
When his gaze fell on Caroline, his eyes widened.
“As you can see, things have progressed rather quickly since we last talked.”
When she attempted to go over to him, the groom clamped a hand on her shoulder. “Let me go. Lady Withington needs help.” Good heavens, there was nothing in the room that would help with the bleeding that would inevitably follow, or anything else for that matter.
“The major can take care of it,” he growled back.
“At least let the housekeeper assist him. Birthing a child is difficult and dangerous. Lady Withington needs all the support she can have right now.”
The groom deferred to his wife, who huffed.
“Fine, let Mrs. Dirkwood assist but tie Miss Ives to a chair. We can’t chance that she’ll interrupt us.”
He gestured with the pistol. “Sit in the chair when she vacates it.”
Mrs. Dirkwood scrambled to her feet. “We’ll need hot water and far more towels and sheets at the very least.”
“No!” Betsy shook her head. “I can’t risk you escaping the house or bringing anyone else up here.” She pointed with the knife. “On the floor next to the major.”
An agonized cry from the widow echoed through the room.
The hairs on Caroline’s nape quivered. This had the potential to go wrong in so many ways, and when she fought against the groom’s hold, he put the nose of the pistol to her forehead.
She had no choice but to sit hard on the chair while the maid yanked the cravat from around Felix’s neck.
Her husband used the length of cloth to secure Caroline’s hands behind her.
Whiffs of the major’s cologne drifted to her nose from the manipulated fabric.
“Hurry this along, Major.” The groom came closer to the tableau arranged on the floor.
“I can’t make a woman give birth any faster than the babe has dictated,” Felix said from what sounded like around gritted teeth.
Caroline couldn’t see him all that well since the furniture partially blocked her view.
“From what I can ascertain, it will still be another hour or so before the birthing process is fully completed.”
Worry jumped into the maid’s eyes. “We can’t wait that long. By midnight, I want to be well on our way to our new home.”
So then Caroline’s first suspicions were correct. They had planned to flee London. “Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait to steal her child until its actually born,” she retorted without thinking. “Such cowards, the pair of you.”
“Watch your mouth, Miss Ives.” Mr. Brown swung around and leveled the nose of the pistol at her. “I’m a decent shot and not afraid of the consequences.”
“There is no escaping justice, though.” It didn’t matter that Caroline’s heart beat fast and furious through her veins, she had to do something.
And he would only have one shot, so if he got one off in her direction—she planned to fall out of her chair before the ball hit her—he wouldn’t be able to shoot anyone else.
“Major Kourier will see that one or both of you hang in Newgate.”
The groom scoffed. “They’ll have to catch us first.”
Another scream from Lady Withington split the quiet of the room. “It’s so painful!”
Mrs. Dirkwood clucked her tongue. She kneeled between Lady Withington’s bent knees with Felix’s jacket draped over them for privacy. “I know there is pain, but it will worth it in the end, my lady, when you hold your little one in your arms.”
“No! That’s my baby, and it will be in my arms!” Apparently, the maid’s grasp on sanity had slipped even further. She rushed over to where Mrs. Dirkwood kneeled and put her blade to the older woman’s neck. “The second the babe arrives, you’ll give it to me.”
Caroline couldn’t see the housekeeper’s expression, but her words made her resistance clear. “I will put the babe in its mother’s arms. You are not that woman.”
Betsy’s cry blended with Lady Withington’s next one. She implored her husband. “Do something or we’re going to lose the child we’ve wanted for so long.”
“You?” Lady Withington panted around the inquiry as Caroline worked to free her wrists from the length of the cravat, for in his haste and with the pistol, Mr. Brown had done a piss poor job of securing her.
“I am the one who carried this child. I am the one who dreamed and worried over it endless nights, wondered how to protect it from Withington.”
“But you can marry again, have another child in the future. I can’t because my body is rubbish.”