Chapter 16 #2
His voice took on a darker, distinctly ugly tone.
“Rather than being looked up to, rather than having people curry my favor, I was shown the vicarage door, and the village turned against me. I was hounded out!” His eyes flared, and he trained his feverish gaze on Sylvia.
“And it was all your father’s fault! Because of him, I’ve been forced to eke out a living exhorting money from the gullible in Bristol.
” His eyes narrowed to burning shards, and he lowered his voice to a grating growl.
“And day by day, week by week, month after long month for a good decade and more, I’ve nurtured and nursed my hatred for your father. ”
As Nunsworth glowered darkly at her, Sylvia swallowed. Her heart was thudding in a panicky tattoo.
Then even more disturbingly, Nunsworth’s expression lightened and cleared.
“And then, my dear Sylvia, a few weeks ago, I saw you in the city.” In conversational vein, he went on, “At first, I wasn’t sure it was you, so I asked around.
” His gaze resting on her face, his expression one of pleased anticipation, he said, “When I learned that you were, indeed, Sylvia Buckleberry—well.” His lips drew back in a gloating smile.
“I knew the time for my revenge had come.”
Kit didn’t wait to hear more. He’d already peeked around the hatch and found that, as he’d hoped, it opened into a deeply shadowed area of the mill’s rear section, out of direct sight of where Hillary’s—no, Nunsworth’s—voice placed him, which was somewhere in the middle of the main building.
There on the riverbank, daylight was starting to fade, cut off by higher land to the west. That would work to Kit’s and his helpers’ advantage; with any luck, when Kit went through the hatch, no sudden shaft of bright light would give him away.
He swiveled on his heel and pointed to Smiggs, then, with his hands, mimed that Smiggs should go around to the mill’s front door, wait until he heard Kit pounce, then come storming in to assist.
Smiggs gave a curt nod and, moving silently, vanished into the bushes.
Kit fixed the three boys with a stern look and mouthed, “Stay here.” He knew it was futile, but felt compelled to try to protect them.
All three looked at him with innocent eyes and said nothing.
Resisting the urge to roll his own eyes, Kit turned and, opening the hatch as little as possible, slipped through. He didn’t have time to argue with the boys, not with Sylvia facing a madman.
He found himself beside the old waterwheels. The entire area was shrouded in deep shadow and a low wall—about chest high—cut the area off from the main floor of the mill.
He carefully rose and spotted Nunsworth standing on the far side of a raised stone platform. He was looking down as he continued to talk, suggesting that Sylvia was sitting on the floor with her back to the platform.
Kit crouched and quickly made his way to the edge of the partition. He glanced around it, but Nunsworth’s gaze remained lowered, his attention fixed on Sylvia.
There was a large skylight in the ceiling above and behind where Nunsworth stood, and the soft, late-afternoon light illuminated a square of floor between Nunsworth and the main door.
Kit glimpsed a figure sprawled, unmoving, on the ground not far from the door.
A watchman? From the look of the man, he wasn’t going to be able to help.
Kit refocused on Nunsworth. The light from above made the shadows wreathing the rest of the mill floor appear darker and gloomier.
Clinging to those shadows, placing his feet with care and keeping to a crouch, Kit ghosted forward using benches and tool racks for cover, eventually fetching up at the rear of the stone platform.
He paused, but Nunsworth continued talking, enumerating and railing against all the supposed slights visited on him by the villagers.
The stone slab was roughly twelve feet by twelve feet in area, about waist high, and had rails running along three sides. As he’d neared the slab, Kit had seen that Nunsworth had tied Sylvia’s hands, arms spread wide, to the railing on the opposite side.
Kit glanced up and saw the huge iron plate suspended above the slab. Presumably when the mill was operating, the plate would pound down on crude brass sheet spread on the slab, flattening it to the desired thickness.
Given the way Nunsworth had positioned Sylvia, he didn’t plan on using the iron plate to enact his revenge; Kit took some small comfort from that.
Dismissing the gruesome thought, he crept to the corner of the slab and eased his way around it.
A whisper of sound from the depths of the mill told him that, as he’d expected, the boys had followed him inside. He had to trust that their sneaking skills were at least as good as his; he couldn’t afford to shift his attention from Sylvia and Nunsworth to check.
Nunsworth was a larger man than Kit had anticipated; he was as tall as Kit, of heavier build, and powerful with it.
Kit needed some weapon to tip the scales and bring this situation to a safe end—safe for Sylvia as well as the others. Inch by inch, Kit crept toward the next corner, scanning the benches and tool racks nearby for some implement he could use.
Sylvia had nearly eased her left hand from her glove. One tug, and that hand would be free.
She’d also managed to stretch the gag somewhat, enough that, when Nunsworth’s tirade against the villagers of Saltford ran down, she managed to mumble reasonably clearly, “It was you who I sensed watching me.”
She was perfectly certain she needed to keep him talking as long as she could. She hadn’t yet worked out how to free her feet.
His hands in his pockets, Nunsworth blinked at her.
“Was I the one watching you?” When she nodded, he smiled, transparently pleased by what he saw as his own cleverness.
“Yes, indeed. I made sure I knew all about you before I acted. I required the better part of a day to enact the scenario I’ve devised as most likely to cause your father the maximum excruciating pain. ”
He paused, looking over her head as if relishing the thought of her father’s agony, then lowered his gaze to her face and smiled smugly.
“I needed a day during which no one was likely to realize you were missing. Well, other than your landlady, the estimable Mrs. Macintyre, but I believe I can rely on her to dither. She won’t want to go to the authorities in case she’s acting precipitously and ends somehow sullying your reputation.
I know how those like her—like the villagers here—think.
No. Mrs. Macintyre will wait to see if you return, and by the time she realizes you aren’t going to, it’ll be far too late. ”
Nunsworth’s smile of anticipation grew. “Far, far too late for anyone to save you.” He studied her for a moment, then went on, “Sunday, of course, was the obvious day. As a clergyman’s daughter, your movements on Sunday are entirely predictable—you go to church in the morning and return to your lodgings to take luncheon with your landlady, and she is the only one to see you through the rest of the day. The Sabbath, our day of rest.”
Except, Sylvia thought, Kit had been coming to walk out with her. She glanced upward, at the softening sky visible through the skylight. She didn’t know what time it was, but surely Kit would have called long since. He would guess that something had befallen her…
Was it possible he might realize what had happened and be driving to her rescue?
She couldn’t see how. Surreptitiously wriggling her still-anchored right hand, she decided she couldn’t hope for rescue; she would have to save herself.
In gloating vein, Nunsworth continued, “Indeed, Sunday is the perfect day—the day of the week on which your father is at his most righteous.” Nunsworth all but preened.
“I’ve laid my plans quite brilliantly, if I do say so myself.
” He looked down at her, yet didn’t seem to actually see her, and purred, “This is going to be so very satisfying.”
She got the distinct impression that, in looking at her, he was seeing not her but some vision that pleased him to no end; her skin crawled.
But she almost had both her hands loose. Desperate to keep him dwelling on his plan rather than acting it out, she mumbled, “But why here?”
Refocusing on her, he tipped his head, then ventured, “Why bring you here?”
She nodded, trying to let nothing more than sincere interest show in her eyes.
He arched his brows in a superior way. “I would have thought that obvious, my dear. I want your father to see your body, and that sooner rather than later, so he can appreciate it in all its gory glory. As close as we are to the vicarage, I think that’s guaranteed.
I want him to see what his piety has bought him.
” Nunsworth’s features contorted, viciousness overtaking his expression as he raised his head.
“I want to watch and see his shock. I want to watch him grieve! And ultimately, when he reads my note, I want to see guilt swamp him and bring him to his knees!”
The last was said like a clarion call—a summons to battle.
Abruptly, Nunsworth looked down and pinned Sylvia with his gaze.
All humanity had leached from his face. “I want,” he stated, “your father to understand that your death and the manner of it is a judgment I’ve passed on him.
He took from me the life I should have had. In return, I’ll take a life from him.”
Kit was crouching by the corner of the slab, a mere two yards from Sylvia. His blood ran cold at Nunsworth’s words. The man might be insane, but he was also deadly serious, driven by compulsive intent and a hatred fueled by obsession.
A rack of tools off to Kit’s right offered a pair of long, heavy iron tongs, the most useful implement Kit had spotted. But in going for the tongs, he would immediately be seen by Nunsworth.