Chapter 17
David reached the cottage by mid-morning. The residence was just as the solicitor had described it: a small cottage with a dark wood door and only one small window to the right of that. The winding path through the woods had led him here, and he had noted the hoofprints along it.
Having tied his horse a short distance away, he now approached with all caution, noting that there was no smoke coming from the chimney.
Did that mean that Rathbone was not within?
Or had he been wise enough to realize it might alert others to his presence?
The house was silent, the pale stone facade giving nothing away.
He paused at the door, listening. Nothing stirred within.
He tried the handle. It gave without resistance, and the door swung inward on a room in disarray — a chair overturned, the cold hearth scattered with ash, and on the narrow bed in the far corner, the sheets thrown back and the small window above it standing open. Frederica was gone.
The relief lasted only a heartbeat before the floorboard behind him groaned.
“Hampshire.” Rathbone’s voice came from the shadows near the far wall, where he had been standing very still.
“I wondered how long it would take you.”
David turned. The man was broader than he remembered, his coat rumpled, his jaw dark with a day’s growth of beard. There was no pretense of civility left in his face — only the flat, assessing patience of someone who had been waiting and was now ready.
“Where is she?” David’s voice was low, dangerous.
Rathbone shrugged. “Gone. Slipped out through that window like a cat in the night.” His lips curled. “But it hardly matters now, does it? I did not bring her here for affection, Hampshire. I brought her here because your uncle owed me — and you will pay what he did not.”
“What I am due,” Rathbone said, and the smile that spread across his face was the smile of a man who had been patient beyond any reasonable expectation and had now finished with patience entirely.
“Your uncle promised me land in Hampshire. He promised. A house of my own, acreage sufficient for a gentleman’s living, and coin enough to sustain it.
All in exchange for my silence, my service, and my discretion.
” The smile hardened. “And then he died — and left me nothing.”
David’s hand was on the hilt of his sword, but he did not draw it. “Whatever he may have promised you, it was not his to give at Frederica’s expense.”
“Frederica.” Rathbone said the name with a contempt that curdled the air between them.
“I would have married her. I would have been a tolerable husband — tolerable enough for a girl with no other prospects. But your uncle decided otherwise, did he not? Decided that an earl — a proper gentleman — would do where a solicitor would not.”
He was moving. David saw it too late — the slow, deliberate shuffle that had been disguised as conversation, each step bringing Rathbone closer while his words kept David’s attention on his face rather than his feet.
The first blow came without warning — a short, brutal strike to the ribs that used Rathbone’s considerable weight behind it.
David staggered. A chair clattered sideways as his hip struck its edge, and it toppled, spinning across the floor.
The pain was immediate and total, a bright white explosion that telescoped his vision down to a narrow point.
He swung — a wide, instinctive arc — and felt his fist connect with the side of Rathbone’s jaw.
The man’s head snapped sideways. A table jolted as Rathbone stumbled against it, sending a ceramic jug crashing to the floor where it shattered, the shards scattering across the worn boards like teeth.
The satisfaction lasted half a breath. Rathbone recovered, his jaw reddening, his eyes gone flat and calculating.
He came at David low, under his guard, and they collided with a force that drove them both into the wall.
The plaster cracked behind David’s shoulders.
A framed picture — some forgotten pastoral scene — fell and smashed at their feet.
David fumbled for his sword. His fingers found the hilt, closed around it, drew the blade in a rasp of steel that filled the room. He levelled it at Rathbone’s chest—
But Rathbone was faster than a man of his build had any right to be.
He seized the chair from the floor and brought it down in a sweeping arc.
The impact knocked the sword from David’s hand.
It spun across the floor, catching the pallid light from the window, and came to rest beneath the table, out of reach.
They fought without weapons then — or rather, Rathbone fought, and David survived, which was the lesser of the two achievements.
Rathbone struck with the economical brutality of a man who had learned violence not in a fencing salle but in alleys and taverns, where rules were a luxury and mercy a weakness.
Every blow found its mark. David gave what he could — a knee to Rathbone’s thigh, an elbow to his ribs — but the room was too small and Rathbone too close, and the pain in David’s chest was building into something that threatened to swallow him whole.
The final blow caught him at the temple. The room tilted. He tasted copper and felt the boards beneath his back — when had he fallen? — and through the ringing in his ears, he heard Rathbone breathing hard above him.
A glint. His sword. In Rathbone’s hand now.
Rathbone swung it lightly, testing the weight. “I will gain all that was to be mine, with or without your consent,” he breathed, his grin a dark, unsettling smile that sent dread into David’s heart.
“I do not want Frederica any longer, not when I see the suffering she will cause me. But because of her father’s manipulations and because of your refusal, I will make certain she has no one to come near her again.
The rest of her life will be pitiful, quiet, and filled with sorrow – and I shall be glad of it. ”
David let out a groan and tried to sit up, seeing Rathbone ready the sword. He could swing his body to one side; the blow might miss his heart, but he had no strength left with which to fight. Rathbone chuckled and readied the sword.
“Away from him, you blaggard!”
The door to the house crashed back against the wall as it was flung wide open, with Lord Broadford rushing towards Rathbone. David closed his eyes in relief, pushing himself up with as much strength as he could muster, his ribs in agony with every breath he took.
“Hampshire!”
His heart strained towards her, blackness capturing the edge of his vision as he tried to search for her with his gaze, hearing the cries of Rathbone and the shouts of Lord Broadford. “Nora?”
“I am here, I am here.” Her hand went to his forehead, just as he collapsed back to the floor, his consciousness failing him. “You are safe, Hampshire.”
“Frederica?” he croaked, using the last of his strength to speak her name.
“She is resting at home,” Nora promised, her hand finding his and pressing it tightly. “It is all at an end now, my love. She is safe. You are safe. All this dreadful darkness has now finally been brought to an end.”
It was the rocking of the carriage that finally brought David back to consciousness. Blinking slowly, he tried to sit up straight, only for his head to ache so terribly, he dropped it back to the side of the carriage, where it had been resting.
“You are returned to us, I see.” Lord Broadford leaned towards him, his eyes filled with concern. “How glad I am to see you so.”
“If you had been a few minutes later, then I dread to think what might have happened,” David answered, only to hear a swift catch of breath coming from his other side.
Slowly, he realized that Nora was sitting beside him, her hand in his.
“But I will not think on that. I will only be grateful for your arrival.”
“You are safe now, Hampshire,” she whispered, just as she had said to him before he had lapsed into unconsciousness. “You are quite safe.”
“For that, I am grateful,” he answered, hoarsely, managing to lift his head again so he could look into her eyes. “Frederica?”
“As I have said, she is safe,” she promised, smiling at him despite the tears in her eyes. “Her reputation untouched also, which is near enough a miracle given what happened to her.”
David nodded and then immediately regretted it, wincing visibly. “Where is Rathbone?”
Lord Broadford scowled. “He ran from the house. I had secured him as best I could, but he managed to escape when we were tending to you.”
Worry bit at David’s heart, but he did not have the strength or energy to focus on Rathbone’s absence at present.
“Let us hope that he will no longer try to injure Frederica.” Nora looked towards him, then smiled.
“As much as I will regret it, I shall now have to return to where I left my maid,” Nora reminded Lord Broadford, who nodded his understanding, leaving David with nothing but confusion. “They will all think that I have taken the most ridiculously long drive, but that cannot be helped.”
“I am sure you will be able to deflect any questions,” Lord Broadford said, with obvious relief in his smile. “We will be back at your carriage very soon.”
“I will have to step out as usual this evening, but mayhap you might call at our house come the morrow? Frederica remains at my home — she is resting in our guest chamber. I think it is time that we all spoke together.”
Nora looked at David, who was struggling to keep his eyes open.
“Would you be willing for us to permit us all to speak?”
David squeezed her hand. “But of course. I think it is necessary.”
“I will be there also, if I may?” Lord Broadford asked, as David closed his eyes, weariness began to push down at his eyelids, regret tying itself within him that he had not managed to capture Rathbone as he had hoped. “I should like to understand all that has taken place.”
David rubbed at his eyes, wincing at the pain that tore into his vision as he did so. “Yes, tomorrow,” he managed to say, through lips that felt bruised and heavy. “So long as Frederica is safe, that is all that matters.”