Chapter 12
Desperately searching for some sign of Regina, Richard halted just inside the shrubbery.
He listened intently, but heard no sound, no rustle, no crackle of a leaf.
Chest heaving, dread pounding in his veins, he waited for Barnaby, Penelope, and Rosalind to catch up with him.
When they arrived, his hands on his hips, he swung to face them. “I don’t think they’re here anymore. Given the time it would have taken Alison to get to the house, Leith and Regina could be anywhere. He might even be at the stable.”
Rosalind hauled in a huge breath.
“No!” Penelope slapped a hand over Rosalind’s lips. “Don’t call out to her!”
Above Penelope’s fingers, Rosalind’s eyes widened. When Penelope drew her hand away, Rosalind whispered, “Why not?”
Beyond grim, Barnaby replied, “Because she’s walking with a murderer who almost certainly has designs on her life. Even if she’s close enough to hear, he won’t let her respond.”
“And showing him how close we are might force his hand with whatever he’s planning.” Penelope, too, was scanning the hedges and bushes all around. “That’s the last thing we want to do.”
“If possible, we need to find and join them without giving Leith a chance to put whatever plan he’s concocted into action.” Barnaby walked deeper into the more formal section of the shrubbery.
Frowning, Richard asked, “How do you know he has a plan?”
“Because,” Penelope replied, “while Monty’s murder was spur of the moment and very much unplanned, this time, Leith isn’t overcome by rage.
He’s cold-bloodedly calculating. He tumbled Mrs. Waterhouse and knocked her out to distract and divert Alison and get Regina alone.
Believe me, he didn’t do that for no reason. ”
Rosalind looked at Richard helplessly, and he reached out and took her hand.
He squeezed her fingers. “Trust them—they are the experts in this.”
Penelope was frowning increasingly direfully. “What is he planning?” Frustration edged her words.
Barnaby had been casting about, peering through the trees and checking along the hedged avenues.
Returning to them, he stated, “The estate’s too extensive, the grounds far too large to mount any swift and effective search.
” He raised his head and looked toward the house.
“Stokes has his troops fanning out across the rear to the north, east, and west. Some will come tramping in this direction soon.”
Like a weathervane in an uncertain breeze, Penelope had been aimlessly turning this way, then that.
Richard focused on her face. “So what is he planning?”
Rosalind pleaded, “Where would he take her?”
Behind her spectacles, Penelope’s eyes flew wide.
“That’s it!” Her face cleared, and she swung to face Barnaby.
“The orchard. That’s where this started.
That’s where he’ll take her. He’s clever enough to have guessed that Regina was supposed to leave a payment in the apple-tree hollow.
He’s trying to throw us off the scent by making it seem she was Monty’s killer! ”
Barnaby blinked and made the deductive leap. “Dear God!” He bolted for the orchard.
Richard released Rosalind’s hand and raced after Barnaby.
Penelope hiked up her skirts and, with Rosalind beside her, raced after the men as they streamed along the outer hedge of the shrubbery and pushed on across the lawn to the archway into the orchard.
Barnaby ran flat-out through the archway. Ahead, by the fateful apple tree, he saw Leith, his face contorted into a murderous mask and his hands locked about Regina’s throat as he squeezed the life from her.
“Let her go!” Barnaby yelled and barreled on.
At his heels, Richard swore. “You bastard! Unhand her!”
Leith’s head came up. He saw them, and his grip slackened.
Then he snarled and, as Barnaby and Richard neared, flung Regina’s limp form at them.
Barnaby caught her.
Richard sidestepped and launched himself at Leith as he turned and attempted to flee.
The flying tackle brought Leith crashing down.
But he wasn’t about to surrender. He rolled, taking Richard with him, and fought to get free.
Leaving Leith to Richard, Barnaby gently laid Regina down. Relief coursed through him when she coughed, then hauled in a painful breath, and her brows drew into a frown. He sensed her awareness returning and life reinfusing her limbs.
In a flurry of skirts, Penelope and Rosalind arrived.
Rosalind fell to her knees. “Darling!” She reached for Regina and gathered her in, cradling her sister’s head and shoulders.
Penelope met Barnaby’s eyes and tipped her head to where Richard was grappling with a furious, desperate, and heavier Leith. “Go!”
Barnaby surged to his feet and started toward the brawling men. Leith had bulled his way farther down the row of trees, but Richard had managed to maneuver around so that he blocked Leith’s path deeper into the orchard.
As Barnaby approached, Richard landed a solid blow to Leith’s chin.
Leith reeled back and fell.
Barnaby saw Leith’s face as he struggled to his feet. Lips drawn back in a snarl of unrestrained rage, Leith saw Barnaby coming for him, and with a rush of strength, Leith surged upright, drew a knife—a dagger—from his coat, and rounded on Richard.
“Knife!” Barnaby warned.
Richard saw the blade flashing in the morning light as Leith lunged toward him, the knife at chest height.
At the last instant possible, Richard twisted away from the strike.
Leith saw and attempted to correct his aim, yet his blade scored only Richard’s upper arm.
The shift in positions gave Richard the advantage, and he hammered a right hook into Leith’s chin and followed that with a powerful punch to the side of Leith’s head.
The would-be earl went down, collapsing face-first into the grass.
Chest heaving, Richard stood over him, then, finally convinced the miscreant was, indeed, down and out for the moment, as Barnaby joined him, Richard met Barnaby’s eyes and faintly smiled. “I haven’t brawled like that since I was at school.”
Barnaby nodded at the fallen man. “Obviously, you haven’t forgotten how.”
Richard glanced to where the ladies sat in a froth of skirts in the orchard’s grass. “Yet another thing I’ve learned about myself while here.”
Barnaby followed Richard’s gaze and smiled to himself.
Regina was sitting up on her own and delicately massaging her throat. Her gaze was alert, and her color appeared to be returning.
Looking over the orchard wall, Barnaby and Richard saw Stokes and his men, followed by virtually everyone else, streaming across the lawn toward them.
Leith groaned and stirred, drawing Barnaby’s and Richard’s attention.
Having heard the groan, Rosalind rose, and her expression that of an avenging angel, she stalked past Richard to Leith’s side and administered a well-aimed kick to his ribs. “You monster! How dare you!”
“Shh.” Richard caught her and drew her into his arms and pressed a kiss to her temple. “We caught him in time. That’s all that matters.”
Leith groaned again and rolled. He raised his head enough to slant a bleary-eyed glance up at them as if, even now, weighing his chances of winning free.
His features reflecting open disgust, Richard looked at Leith and shook his head. “You’re a despicable excuse for a gentleman. How on earth are you an earl?”
“He’s not.” Barnaby watched as Stokes and his men cleared the archway and strode toward them, then Barnaby glanced at Richard and Rosalind. “That’s what this has been about.”
No stranger to the contortions of inheritance, Richard widened his eyes. He looked at Leith. “Really?”
But Leith was studying Barnaby. Hoarsely, Leith asked, “You know?”
Barnaby met Leith’s gaze as Stokes came up, and O’Donnell and Morgan reached down to haul Leith to his feet. “We’ve worked it all out,” Barnaby coldly informed him. “And we have the proof.”
Leith read the conviction in Barnaby’s eyes, and the desperate hope that had sustained him drained, and he slumped in the policemen’s hold.
Leaving O’Donnell and Morgan to take Leith in charge, Stokes nodded to Richard. “Good work.”
Richard smiled. “I wasn’t about to let the bastard escape.”
Rosalind hugged him.
With Richard’s arm around her, the pair walked back toward the apple tree beneath the spreading branches of which Regina still sat, and Barnaby and Stokes followed.
Penelope was crouching beside Regina, supporting and encouraging the younger woman, but rose as they neared. Her gaze swept Richard—and fixed on the bloody gash in his coat sleeve. “You’ve been cut!”
“What?” Rosalind pushed out from under Richard’s arm and swung to see. “Where?”
Penelope saw the intensity of Rosalind’s reaction and smiled knowingly as all Rosalind’s pent-up concern focused on a new target.
Richard met Penelope’s eyes and half glared at her, then gave his attention to assuring Rosalind that he wasn’t about to bleed to death from a relatively shallow cut.
Mrs. Hemmings arrived, supported by Lady Carville, and Penelope handed Regina into their care.
As she did so, something beside the apple tree’s trunk caught Penelope’s eye, and forever curious, she went to see what it was. She peered into the grass at the base of the trunk, then turned, waved to catch Stokes’s attention, and beckoned. “You need to see this.”
Stokes and Barnaby ducked beneath the branches and, followed by Richard and a slowly calming Rosalind, walked to where Penelope stood.
She pointed at the coil of strong rope half hidden by the grass. “This proves what his plan for Regina was.”