Chapter 40
Forty
Fletch
Monday morning, still a little unnerved at how easy it had been to fall back into the Morgan family’s routine, Fletch entered Priory Manor after dropping off Kate and the children. He handed the horses to the manor’s grooms, not wanting to stink of horse on his first day of new respectability.
He hadn’t thought of alcohol once in the past few days. . . probably because all he could think about was Kate: angry Kate, laughing Kate, curvy. . . He doubted that she felt the same way. He didn’t know how other men brought a female around to thinking of fornication.
The clock would keep his mind occupied with more practical pursuits. He gave the footman his hat as if he were a gentleman and not a clockmaker’s son. At the marble landing, he heard Rafe and Hunt arguing in the old study across the hall. He wanted no part of interrogating prisoners.
Sliding the newly cleaned and mended mechanisms into position soothed his soul and kept his hands and mind well occupied. The weight of the pendulums still worried him. His calculations showed they shouldn’t work. Taking them apart, however. . .
To his relief, the tutor and his students traipsed down the stairs before he reached that point.
The barely verbal prodigies interested him, probably because he sympathized with their lack of words. He waited to see what they had learned from his drawings.
Oliver, Clare Huntley’s nephew, returned the drawings to him, along with pages of mathematical formulas and some advanced graphs probably beyond Fletch’s limited education.
“May we open the weights?” Davy asked. Heir to a fortune and Miss Talbott’s younger brother, he was the more talkative of the duo.
Fletch glanced up to the tutor. “Do we have permission? I cannot promise they will go back together as they were wrought. It’s a very delicate balance.”
“They are wrong,” Oliver declared firmly, quite astoundingly for the silent boy.
“I agree that their weight is wrong,” Fletch said more precisely. “But I cannot destroy a valuable timepiece without permission, and Captain Huntley is busy.”
Mr. Birdwhistle lifted his arm, and as if summoned by an invisible signal, Quincy, the butler appeared. “Are Mrs. Huntley or Miss Talbott available? Major Fletcher requires their approval for the final repairs.”
Quincy bowed and strode down the main corridor. Fletch wondered how a mere tutor learned that level of command. He had given up pondering a household in which the women took charge.
“Can you explain your conclusions to the major?” The tutor laid a hand on Oliver’s shoulder encouraging him.
“The earl liked puzzles,” the boy replied solemnly.
Fletch had heard about that. He thought the Reid family might be as demented as Hugh, but the earls had been wealthy. That made their madness eccentric.
“And the drawing on the pendulums are puzzles?” Fletch asked.
Both boys nodded.
Davy spoke. Slightly older and a lot chubbier than Oliver, he chose words with more care. “One design is a puzzle revealing the correct weight and orientation of the pendulum.” He showed Fletch a neatly detailed page of calculations.
“The other. . .” Oliver held out the graphs. “Is a map.”
A map? This was worse than pulling teeth. Fletch vowed to use his words more. Before he could question, a cry from the rear of the main corridor distracted them.
“The prisoner has escaped!” a footman shouted.
Which prisoner? Didn’t matter, they had all been out to harm Kate.
Leaving the tutor to hustle his young charges upstairs to the safety of the schoolroom, Fletch raced for the sewing workshop and Kate.
The librarian popped out of the library, an ornamental sword in hand. Fletch pointed her back to the library. “Lock it.”
He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed orders. A footman emerged from the front entrance. Fletch pointed him back to the double set of doors. “Lock all of them. Let no one but family in or out.”
That included him. No matter. He burst into the bustling ballroom. Women glanced up from their sewing to stare as he threw the ornate ballroom doors closed. He didn’t possess keys. He stacked crates in front of them.
With a look of terror, Kate glanced up to see what he was doing.
He hated putting that look back on her face. “Precautions,” he told her as calmly as possible, stifling his raging beast. “One of the servants believes a prisoner is loose. They are probably with Hunt and Rafe, but I’m not taking chances.” He tried to believe that but life was too unpredictable.
“Lavender.” She rushed off, presumably to lock the tower door. Smart lady.
Only, Fletch had the ominous notion that Lavender had never been the target. Or Ana Marie.
Kate was.
And he only had his knives at hand.
Think, Fletch. Civilization required thought and planning, even if terror flooded his brainbox.
With a roomful of vulnerable women watching him in fear, he had the urge to turn around and join whatever battle loomed outside this towering chamber.
Rifles and violence, he understood. He couldn’t guard a ballroom of females with his wits.
The immense space with it’s two-story leaded windows was no fortress.
Real soldiers would batter through the glass. . .
He was crossing the ballroom before the plan had fully developed.
“If anyone breaks in,” he shouted as he went, “direct them toward the tower, please. Should they be stupid enough to approach any one of you, all of you pick up your knives and shears and herd them toward the tower. Otherwise, stay back.”
Kate actually waited for him in front of the office door, keys in hand. “You can’t send escaped prisoners in here!” she frantically admonished. “I have to keep them from Lavender.”
And she still thought herself so unimportant that she considered Lavender before herself.
Fletch refrained from rolling his eyes but snatched her keys.
“You and Lavender take the tower stairs up and warn the schoolroom. Go in the attic and lock the doors behind you. If Arnaud is in his studio, you might send Rob up to warn him. We’ll guard the stairs. ”
She worriedly glanced from him to the unlocked door, then accepting his orders, the pair fled.
He’d like to tell Kate that his monster wasn’t back, yet, but he lacked words to explain that this situation required rationality. Violence in a house full of women and children. . . Even his monster knew better.
If the escaped prisoner was stupid enough to try to escape through the ballroom, Fletch didn’t want them feeling trapped. If they ran free through the workspace—and didn’t see Kate—they had no reason to harm helpless bystanders.
He didn’t believe any of the demented prisoners smart enough to flee for the woods. He’d like to be proved wrong. Since he couldn’t be inside and out at the same time, he chose the tower as the strongest position for defending Kate. Rafe and Hunt had to handle any alternative.
If the prisoner was after Kate, however, they’d look for a way into the place where she worked—either through the ballroom or the tower with its outside entrance.
Fletch started down the stairs, knife drawn. Arnaud, Hunt’s artist cousin, clattered down to join him. A peaceful giant, he held only a small palette knife.
“Doors locked on top?” Fletch asked quietly, taking the narrow stones to the ground floor, listening for intruders.
“Secured and guarded.” At the bottom, finding the cellar empty, Arnaud accepted the longer knife Fletch handed him.
Guarded could mean anything from an army of women, children, and tutors, or ladies’ maids and dowagers with knitting needles or. . . Fletch had to hope the locks held.
This floor was a dirt cellar once used for storage. It had only one entrance. Fletch left it unsecured.
“Surely, they’re running for horses?” Arnaud asked, realizing they were setting a trap.
“Lunatic,” Fletch reminded him. “And not a bright one, if it’s Hugh.”
Although single-minded Hugh was more likely to aim for Kate’s house, not Kate, Fletch realized.
With that realization, Saturday’s nightmare slowly began to make sense. That’s what happened when he took the time to use his wits and not his fists.
He hated that he could think like a killer—but there one was, right on schedule, shoving at the entrance leading into a tower of innocents.
A flash of daylight from the opening door revealed the visitor’s identity.
Wilma.
Wilma, the grumbling, stupid, lazy ox who had followed her brighter, attractive butterfly of a sister to the manor. He’d like to believe she’d come to fetch her children in the schoolroom, but. . .
The ox held her youngest child by the arm. The skinny little girl appeared confused, trying to shake off the strong grip.
“I don’ wanna go back to school,” she whined. “I wanna go home.”
Anyone entering looked to the stairs first. Fletch slipped into the shadows of one of the medieval stalls across from the stairs, gesturing for Arnaud to step forward. Wilma wouldn’t know Arnaud.
The instant the giant appeared from the stairwell, Wilma produced a butcher knife and held it at the girl’s throat. “Send Mrs. Morgan down and no one gets hurt.”
Shocked, Fletch had to rethink his beliefs about motherhood and witless oxen. He had no compunction about striking a male lunatic, but no notion of how to take down a crazed female.
As he’d planned, she couldn’t see him in the dark stalls. He could stab her through the liver before she knew he was there. It would save the court the trouble of a trial.
Kate would hate him.
He’d hate himself for releasing the lurking monster.
Oh well. Here went the other shoulder. He dropped, rolled, and hitting the back of Wilma’s knees, slashed his knife upward, slicing the arm holding the little girl.
Wilma screamed, her grip loosened, and Fletch rolled the little girl out of her clutches. Wilma came after him with her stolen butcher knife.
Impolitely, Arnaud plowed his massive fist into the mad woman’s jaw. She dropped like the proverbial rock.
Instead of bleeding to death, Fletch found himself in possession of a weeping, hysterical child.