Chapter 16
Sixteen
Most humble piece of shite Respected Sir Carr,
During my investigation into the sabotage of the Caledonian Canal, I unearthed a plot to blackmail landowners if they refused to sell their land along the projected path.
Those landowners who could not be blackmailed, were beaten to a bloody pulp.
If that failed to obtain compliance, they met violent deaths.
The deplorable tactics were then turned on their wives and children, who sold the property for a mere pittance.
I have allowed the concealment of Mr. Duncan Blair’s murder by the local surgeon and vicar to remain. Although you should know those two men documented it as a suicide under duress. The surgeon has two missing fingers on his surgical hand, you filthy bastard.
Several daughters of deceased landowners have disappeared without a trace when their fathers were murdered.
The local pub-owner expressed concern for the fate of Mr. Blair’s six daughters since there was no one to protect them.
I have guarded the Blair daughters every night since.
Twice a group of men tried to sneak onto the property.
Two have been dispatched, but the third, a James Crookes from London, the one I suspect of murdering Mr. Blair, remains at large.
The Duke of Ross arrived today and has created a stir among the staff who suspect him to be connected to Mr. Blair’s death. I have arranged for the girls to disappear with a responsible party. Even I do not know where they have gone.
I request to continue my search for Mr. Blair’s killer and the saboteurs of the Caledonian Canal.
Your most defiant humble servant,
—A heavily redacted letter written to the head of the War Office by a newly appointed young agent.
This being his first mission for the Crown he became suspicious of his superior when he was instructed to cover-up the cause of death for Mr. Duncan Dorian Blair II.
The young agent would eventually become Sir Carr’s replacement when Sir Carr met with an untimely death.
Her nerves were on end. It had been hours since Simon, Robbi and Mr. Payne left to find Edeen and her friend Violet. Lillie and Millie had come downstairs claiming monsters were under their bed and were currently under each one of her arms attempting to read their chosen book, Mr. Hodger’s Village.
“‘Biscuits are rather like eating baked mealworms. Mmmm,’ said the spiny little creature.’” Lillie giggled at the accompanying noises Millie used for the hedgehog.
Caillen closed her eyes. Any other time, the silliness of the story would be amusing. At that moment, she wanted to shred the book into tiny little pieces she could make disappear as quickly as the ridiculous blue hedgehog was eating his biscuits.
A commotion in the foyer signaled the returned of Simon and her sisters, and Caillen pulled her arms out from behind the two girls. “Keep reading. We need to finish up shortly. It’s way past your bedtime.”
“Yes, mama.”
She startled and looked down at Millie.
“Do we have your permission to call you mama?” Millie asked.
“We’ve never had a mama. You would be our first.” Lillie’s smile was hopeful.
She bit her lip, holding back the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. “I would be honoured to be your mama. May I call you my daughters?”
“Cor!” The girls said in unison and hugged her tight, squeezing her from each side as if they would never let her go. She would certainly never release them, no matter how much she drove them to distraction when they hit the marriage mart.
Glass breaking in the foyer brought her to her feet instantly.
“Girls, stay here.” She ran across the room and opened the door a crack to peek out.
Charlie was struggling with two burley men attempting to force their way into the residence.
Despite how well-formed Astley’s footman was, he was no match for two men of equal stature, and meaner spirits.
Caillen turned around to grab the girls and ran into the garden.
The door at her back flew open and struck her, sending her down to her knees on the carpet.
“Bloody bastard! Bloody bastard!” Charlotte screamed from her corner perch.
Caillen saw the fear on Millie and Lillie’s faces as they attempted to crawl over the back of the settee. Their weight sent the settee crashing to the floor and the girls sprawling across the carpet.
Caillen rolled away from the door when she saw a third intruder for the first time standing over her.
“Well, well, well. Look what we ‘ave ‘ere.” The obsidian eyes of the man in front of her were nothing like Simon’s. This man’s eyes were darkened by the depravity of his soul. The pistol in his hands, pointed at the girls, confirmed his turpitude.
“What do you want?” She demanded. The girls rushed over, whimpering behind her, and she gave them a staying hand gesture to calm them.
“I’ve come fer me due, darlin’. Youse owe me.”
“Sir, you are in the wrong household. I don’t owe you a farthing.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. I’m ‘ere to collect me due from more than ten years back.”
Crookes. Dear God, why was the man so obsessed with her family? “What have we done to you?”
“Done to me?” He let out a laugh that held no mirth. Just pure malice. “I killed your father fer the price of receiving six brats. I never got the brats.”
“You killed my father because of his daughters?”
“Six bitches with manners be worth a pretty shilling,” he sneered.
Never before had she wanted to see a man drawn and quartered. “Again, I will ask you to leave, before I have my footman throw you out.” Slowly she moved toward her pistol stuffed in the cushion of the chair.
Crookes circled around her, getting closer.
More glass crashed in the foyer as grunts and yelling rang through the house.
“I don’t think ye strappin’ footman will be much ‘elp ta ye.
‘E seems to ‘ave ‘is ‘ands full. Lookin’ at ye now, I see ye’ be a bit long in the tooth fer me purposes. I think I’ll be takin’ ‘em instead.” He nodded at the twins behind her, and her blood curdled.
“Over my dead body,” she spat.
He shook his head as if it was little consequence to him. “That can be arranged.” He lifted the pistol and she charged.
The gun exploded, smoke billowing in the air as she ran at him with everything she had. His shot missed. He swung the pistol at her head. She ducked, but the gun struck the top of her forehead and pain radiated through her skull. Her vision blurred. She reached out.
“Ye stupid bitch!” He yelled and punched her in the nose. Her vision darkened as she fell, striking the table with the back of her head.
Sounds became muffled. She lay on the floor, warm liquid pouring down her face as the tang of copper filled her mouth. The girls cried out, but she couldn’t move.
She turned her head toward the sounds and saw Crookes holding the girls with one fist tightly wrapped around both their braids. The girls screamed and cried and struggled as Crookes dragged them to the garden door by their hair.
Caillen crawled to the chair where the gun was hidden.
That’s when she saw Sébastien creeping across the room.
He dove at the girls, ripping their hair from the man’s hand and tackling them to ground.
She grabbed the gun and stumbled to her feet as Crookes' angry roar filled the room.
He raised his pistol toward her three children.
She fired as she charged him, an unholy scream exploding from her.
The man fell over howling and writhing in agony.
Caillen ran toward her crying children, urging them to their feet as she pushed them out the back door and into the garden.
“Shhhh,” she said. “Run toward the gate! Everything will be alright.” She wrapped her arms around their shaking bodies as they stumbled their way to the back gate.
“Lady Bredlebane! Lady Bredlebane!”
They stilled at the sound of Mandal’s shaky voice and looked at the house where the butler stood at the open doors.
“Mandal? Is Charlie safe?”
A beaten Charlie stumbled into the doorway behind Mandal, and a sob tore through her chest.
“He’s alive,” Sébastien said.
“He’s alive,” she repeated, crying as she began walking back toward the house with three precious gifts wrapped in her arms.
“The garden door is open,” Edeen said.
Edeen’s words, spoken with a cold, unflappable honesty, were like a knife to his chest flaying his flesh from his body piece by piece. That one open door exposed his heart to the brutal truth—he may have lost her once more.
Robbi leaned across Edeen’s lap, craning her neck to see the view outside her sister’s side of the carriage.
They had planned to enter from the servants’ entrance, but seeing the open garden door, it seemed they should have stormed the front door.
“That’s one of garden doors off the drawing room. Look, Charlotte’s on the fence,” Robbi said, pointing at the parrot.
Simon pounded on the roof for the driver to stop. He turned to Payne. “We’ll get out here and approach the house on foot. We need to stick to the plan and use the servants’ entrance.”
“Give me a gun,” Edeen demanded.
“Do you know how to use one?”
“Of course I do.”
He looked to Robbi for confirmation, but she only winced.
“Give her a gun, Payne, and let’s go.”
Payne handed Edeen a pistol and said, “Don’t point it at anything but the center of a man’s chest.”
Simon was the first one through the servants’ door, with Payne following the girls as they ran.
He stopped at the entrance, where a dead silence filled the air, as the candles in the sconces flickered in the hallway to the kitchen.
Payne stood at his back with Robbi and Edeen behind him. Each had a pistol in hand.
Cautiously, he made his way past the kitchens where the fire in the hearth burned low. They reached the doorway to the foyer, and Payne put a steadying hand on his shoulder. They listened together but heard nothing on the other side.
Simon slowly pushed the door open to a ransacked foyer. Art littered the floor along with shattered vases, spilt flowers, and broken furniture.
“Caillen! Sébastien! Millie and Lillie!” He yelled as he ran for the staircase.
The sound of the baby crying was the first human noise he recognized, and he chased it.
Taking two steps at a time, his leg screamed at him to slow down.
He pulled himself up with the railing and ran until he reached the third floor.
He sprinted for the nursery door and paused to listen for occupants.
All he could hear was the wail of the babe inside.
He breached the door with the force of a bull…and froze. His chest heaved with each breath he took. Caillen, Sébastien, Lillie, and Millie all sat on the floor of the nursery, Caillen in the center, bouncing a screaming Dorian on her lap. He immediately swung his pistol behind his back to hide it.
They all looked up as if the noise he had created was nothing more than a scratch at the door. They appeared not to notice the splintered wood or the slightly off cue door. They smiled at him and it eased some of the panic he felt when he saw the bandage around Caillen’s head.
He was home. His wild, uproarious, raucous and loving home, where one and all were attempting to calm the loudest one among them.
A man had never been so lucky in his life.
Robbi skidded to a halt next to him, and he batted her pistol behind her back.
“Caillen looks happy, if a little worse for wear. But you should see the other blokes.”
“I’ll tear them limb from limb,” he said under his breath as he smiled at his family.
“You’re too late. They’re dead,” Robbi’s voice held a glee he should be worried about. Except he was feeling more than a bit of it himself.
“Are you sure you want to be a part of this tempest?” she asked.
“There’s no place I’d rather be,” he confessed.
“Foine. I’ll help Payne with the dead bodies in the drawing room and rescue Charlotte from the garden, but just so you know, my sister’s going to need to give a statement, so don’t distract her by baring that handsome arse of yours.” She mocked him with a wink.
“Take this, brat. I have no use for it now.” He discreetly handed his pistol to her. “Make sure you lock up all the guns in my study.”
Robbi saluted him and ran back down the stairs, and Simon joined his family on the floor as baby Dorian serenaded the entire household.