Chapter Seventeen #2
“Fine. No need to come the crab.” As her father pushed out of his chair then resettled next to her mother, Mr. Knapp trained his pistol on Caroline.
“Take the coords from the draperies, Mrs. Kourier, and then bind your parents’ wrists.”
“What?” Fear dripped down her spine, but she rose to her feet. “Surely there is no need for that.” She shook her head as she glanced at her parents then back to him. “In fact, let them go. If it’s me you want, send them away.”
“Do it now and don’t think to question me!” Mr. Knapp trained the nose of the pistol on her chest. “I want your husband. Don’t make me shoot you and have you bleed out before the major comes in.”
Fear filled her chest in a cold wave. “He doesn’t know I’m in peril, so therefore will not be joining me.”
Confusion shadowed the other man’s eyes. “He isn’t with you?”
“No.” With slow, measured steps, Caroline made her way around the low table even though her mother whispered for her to stop.
“He went home, exhausted, after you tried to kill him earlier today.” Though her mother gasped, she didn’t spare her a look.
“Thank goodness for our housekeeper.” For she was quite certain this was the murderer they’d hunted, yet it wasn’t quite true.
Not fully. Something was still off. It was only a matter of thinking harder before the truth bubbled to the surface.
“It doesn’t matter. The job will finish tonight.” Mr. Knapp gestured with the pistol. “The ties from the drapes, if you please. I’ll use you and your parents as leverage. And do it quickly. My time grows quite short. There is a boat I need to catch.”
Ah, so he was escaping from England, which meant he either truly lost the coin in investments, or he was taking those funds with him. “Fine.” With another look at her mother, Caroline slowly moved toward the first window.
“Ah, I do enjoy docile women.”
“That is a poor assumption on your part. You know nothing about me.” Had she been on that beach today, she wouldn’t have stopped with only one whack from the driftwood.
She glanced over her shoulder in time to catch his rather lopsided grin, and that brought the niggling something to the forefront of her mind.
When they’d interviewed Mrs. Standish, she said that when she’d met Mr. Foster, the only thing she remembered about him was a tilted, lopsided grin.
Could it be? “But then, what can I expect from a man who is a murderer.” It was a stretch, but if she could distract him, all the better.
Heavy silence filled the room after the announcement.
“If you want the truth Mr. Knapp isn’t a murderer.”
That made no sense. Why would he refer to himself like that?
Caroline made quick work of bringing the ties from the draperies over to the sofa where her parents sat.
The tassels brushed over the skin of her arm, and gooseflesh followed, for she was so frightened, she could hardly move.
“Meaning what? You’d best have out with it since you’re planning to flee from England. ”
“With my coin?” Again, her father exploded and launched himself off the sofa. “You thieving bastard.”
“Enough!” Mr. Knapp’s shout echoed in the space. “I warned you, Beckham.”
Bang!
The sound of the pistol discharging was a horror to her ears, but it was her mother’s scream that completely wrenched at her heart.
As her father tumbled backward onto the sofa, he clutched at his upper right arm with his left hand while her mother used a few of the handkerchiefs sitting in her project basket to help stem the flow of blood seeping through the sleeve of his jacket.
Caroline gawked at the intruder. “You shot my father?” For a few seconds, darkness encroached at the edges of her vision. The urge to faint came over her, but by sheer willpower, she remained standing.
“I warned him to settle. He didn’t. There are consequences to these things.” His expression suggested boredom and no remorse. “He’ll live, Lady Beckham. The ball went through the fleshy part, I’m sure.”
“As if that makes it right.” Caroline tossed the drapery ties away. “What do you want, Mr. Knapp? Clearly, you’ve already taken coin from my family. I can’t imagine what else you need.”
“You.”
“What?” Ignoring her mother’s sobs and her father’s grunts of pain, she slowly moved away from the sofa where they sat.
Since he’d already got off a shot, and since his weapon wasn’t double-barreled, that meant he’d need to reload in order to shoot again.
That gave her the advantage. “What the deuce are you talking about?”
“You are my bait to lure the major here. From there, he’ll escort me out of Brighton and get on that ship until I reach the Continent.”
“And then what?” She needed to keep him talking so she could formulate a plan. “Do you plan on shooting him too?”
“That largely depends on my mood.”
“What do you have against Major Kourier? He’s never met you, except the two times you attacked him.”
“Again, not exactly true. Mr. Knapp did that. I didn’t.” Before she could speak, he removed his top hat and tossed it away. Then, as their gazes locked, her tugged at his black hair until it slipped off his head.
It was a wig! For the second time that evening, Caroline gawked at him. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s because you can’t fathom someone double crossing you or doing anything so underhanded as I’ve done.
” Once the wig fell to the floor, he picked at his face until the long chin and nose came off into his hand.
“Nothing more than a bit of theater magic. My cousin works in that line in London. He’s quite the master of rigging up actors to look like the characters they play. ”
As more pieces of the deception fell away, the man beneath emerged.
“Mr. Foster?” Truly, it was him. As he ruffled a hand through his sandy-brown hair and removed the last bits of makeup and felt from his face, he offered a grin. “Why are you in disguise?”
“Why do you think?” He tossed away the various bits of his costume. “It was needed because I’m the investor everyone is gossiping about.” After shoving his pistol into the waist of his breeches, he slowly prowled his way toward her. “To protect my identity, I required a disguise.”
Caroline retreated for every step he took, but her plan was to lead him toward the door and perhaps out of the room, away from her parents. “Can I assume that you aren’t that talented at this living?”
“The markets can be volatile at times.” He shrugged. “It is always a risk.”
“Why did you kill Lord Danforth?” With each step she took, the pistol in her pocket brushed against her leg.
“He had the misfortune of seeing me transform from Foster to Knapp in one of the bathing wagons.” As he spoke, he stalked her. “Of course, he was shocked. Even though I was giving him a cut of the money I took in from clients, he threatened me.”
“Did you actually invest the funds?”
“Some of them. At least in the beginning. When it became apparent that I either had no skill in such things or the markets weren’t favorable, I decided to take the money for myself.”
“Did Danforth suspect that?”
“He confronted me about it, so I confessed. That was when he told me that he was going to tell the local authorities, tell Beckham, tell anyone who would listen that I was a thief and a fraud.”
“Forcing you to make plans to leave England.”
“Yes. At least it saved me from giving him more coin.”
“When did you obtain my mother’s letter opener?”
“The night before he nuptial ceremony. It wasn’t planned; I simply knew Danforth would ruin everything, and I couldn’t have that.
On the way out of this townhouse after billiards that night, I grabbed the letter opener, followed him outside.
I hid in the gardens as he argued with his mistress.
There were still too many people around, though, so I had to bide my time.
” His eyes took on a bit of a crazed glaze.
“I stood vigil outside his cottage. When he left early the morning of the ceremony, he was finally alone.”
“So you attacked him as he walked from the cottages to the townhouse. We found the broken fencing and the blood on the ground.”
“That was unfortunate, but yes, I killed him there. I had to. The sun was just coming up. People would be out and about. It was my only chance.” He paused, either to brag or formulate an escape plan.
“What sort of person jabs a letter opener into another man’s neck and then watches as he dies?” Her stomach turned. The urge to retch grew strong. At all costs, she had to protect the babe.
“It didn’t take long. Perhaps five minutes.” A hint of remorse shadowed his eyes. “He pleaded for help. Honestly, I think I’m beyond that.”
“Did you use the fence panel to help haul him down to the beach?”
“No, but that would have been easier.” He shook his head.
“Once he died, I hauled him upright, leaned him against my side so it would look as if I was helping a drunk wedding guest. There was still no one about. It was a simple matter to bring him down to the shore and dump him into the sea. The tide was high that morning. He just… floated away.”
For one second, she dry-heaved, but pressing a finger to her upper lip, Caroline regained control of herself. “You’re deranged and quite sick in the head.”
“Perhaps.” He nodded. “The fly in the ointment was knowing Major Kourier was also here. He knew me from Bow Street, so that was why I had to keep my two personas separate. I suspect he would have seen through Knapp’s disguise.”
Hot annoyance went through her chest. “You tried to kill him twice. What sort of man does that? Especially when he’d just gotten married?”
Mr. Foster shrugged. “He knew too much and was coming too close to the truth. It was only a matter of time before the net tightened around me.”