A Lady Never Surrenders Part 20

"I know." Her voice grew choked. "It makes no sense-but it has to be what happened. I can't make it work any other way. Mama wouldn't have come in to check on me only to leave me alone, then come back ten minutes later to check on me again ... And Nurse is right-Papa rarely came into the nursery. He wouldn't have been there at all so early."

She took a heavy breath. "I keep thinking about everything I remember. The voices are just whispers-there's no reason to believe that Papa was there if not for the words, 'mia dolce bellezza,' and that could just have been Mama's lover mocking Papa. I can easily understand how that would have annoyed Mama."

"That's my conclusion as well." He wished he could wipe out her pain, could go back and erase everything she'd heard. Aside from the betrayal she must feel, it must also be humiliating to know that her mother had been so indiscreet that even the servants had noticed. "So none of you ever suspected that your mother-"

"No. I daresay even Gran was oblivious." She stared blindly at the road ahead. "Though perhaps if you ask Oliver and Jarret, they might remember something pertinent. They were old enough to pick up on such clues. I was too young." Her face crumbled. "Oh, Lord, you have to tell them, don't you? It's going to destroy Oliver. He's always blamed Papa for everything that went wrong in their marriage."

Never had Jackson wished more that he had the right to hold her and soothe her hurt. He struggled for words that might make it better. "For all we know, this was her only indiscretion. No one could blame her, given your father's behavior."

"You don't believe it's Mr. Virgil, do you?" Celia asked.

"No. It had to have been Rawdon. Think of what your mother said that morning at your bedside: 'I loathe how she looks at me whenever you speak to me. I think she knows.' Mr. Virgil had no woman for her to compete with, that we know of."

"Unless that part really was a dream. I can't be sure."

"It doesn't seem like something a child would invent, does it?"

"I suppose not." She sighed. "I just don't understand how she could rail at Oliver for his behavior with Mrs. Rawdon. He told us months ago that she compared him to Papa, claiming that Oliver was becoming 'the same wicked, selfish creature as he is, sacrificing anyone to his pleasures.' Those are hard words coming from a woman who is doing the same thing."

"I find that people often use the hardest words for sins in others that they themselves commit. She was feeling guilty over what she'd been doing, so she lashed out at Oliver to cover her own guilt."

"That makes sense," she said in a sad voice. "And it shows how astute you can be when it comes to understanding people. I don't understand people at all. I thought I understood Mama's and Papa's marriage, but now..." She let out a long breath. "Do you think Mama was in love with ... with the captain?"

"I don't know. Her words to Oliver that day imply that she might have been. She said that Mrs. Rawdon 'already had him.' That's what you tell a woman you envy."

"So you think Mrs. Rawdon killed Mama?"

"I'm not sure of that either," Jackson admitted. "How did she know about the a.s.signation? We've already established that your father was the one to notice your mother riding off when he went to the picnic and apparently followed her."

The wind kicked up, and Celia drew her cloak more tightly about her. "Mrs. Rawdon could have followed her, too."

"Perhaps, but surely your mother would have taken measures to prevent that. And your father would have noticed, in any case. Besides, we've also established that it was midafternoon when they headed out for the hunting lodge. But Desmond heard the shots at dusk, hours later. If she'd followed them, she would have killed them right away."

"And Captain Rawdon was probably the man who showed up after they died, so his wife couldn't have followed him there," she said.

"It baffles me. I would suspect that it really was a murder-suicide, that your parents argued and your mother shot your father, except for the gun not being the one that was used to commit the murders."

"Perhaps Captain Rawdon tidied up the scene," she said.

"Why would he do that unless he was tidying it up for his wife?"

"And a.s.suming that Mrs. Rawdon somehow learned of the a.s.signation and killed them, why didn't Desmond see her leave?" Celia pointed out. "Where was she? Desmond never said exactly what he saw that day."

"We need to question him again," Jackson said. "I want more details about what he saw when he entered the lodge."

She was silent for a brief pace. "There's another possibility," she said softly. "Desmond could have some of the details wrong. Or perhaps the captain had been riding away, and he's covering up for him."

"Perhaps Desmond is lying for other reasons," Jackson said grimly. "We still can't be sure he had no part in it. And then there's Benny's death-the Rawdons are in Gibraltar. So who killed Benny? And why?"

"Could Mrs. Rawdon's lady's maid, Elsie, have been involved somehow, and Benny suspected it? Could she have killed Benny?"

"Then why wouldn't he have told me his suspicions when I first talked to him?" Jackson pointed out.

Neither of them had an answer.

They rode a few moments without speaking. The beech woods were thick and shadowed at this point in the road, lending a hush to their surroundings. This was the time to broach the subject of Ned. After what Mrs. Duffett had said concerning Celia and her young cousin, Jackson had to wonder how she'd gone from fancying him to being afraid of him. "Celia-"

A crack sounded somewhere nearby. He didn't register what the sound was until Celia's horse reared and another crack sounded. When he saw the blood seeping from her horse's shoulder and heard her cry, "What the devil?" he realized what was happening.

Someone was shooting at them.

Chapter Sixteen.

Everything happened quickly after that. Celia had barely registered the two pistol shots and was just feeling Lady Bell stagger beneath her when Jackson rode up next to her and hauled her off her horse and onto his.

As she grabbed his waist, he spurred his horse into a gallop. She glanced back to see Lady Bell stumble, but at least the mare was still moving. Celia strained to see who was shooting at them, but the smoke obscured her view and the person was firing from just inside the woods.

More shots followed, and Celia could hear hooves thundering behind her. Oh, Lord, someone really was trying to kill them! And in this heavily wooded, deserted stretch of road, the person might actually succeed.

"We have to leave the road," Jackson called back to her. "We're sitting ducks out here, and we can't outride anybody with two of us on one horse."

That was all the warning he gave her before he veered off into the forest. Beech branches ripped at them, forcing the horse to slow.

Jackson leapt from the saddle, then pulled her down beside him. "Come on! We're safer on foot." He paused only long enough to jerk the saddle bags from the horse, throw them over his shoulder, and then slap his horse on the rear to send it heading back to the road. "That ought to throw them off for a few minutes."

Then he grabbed her hand and dragged her along with him as he took off at a run deeper into the woods. Underbrush tore at her skirts as they rushed past bared branches and crashed through piles of leaves. He stopped abruptly, held a finger to his lips and dug through the saddle bag until he found his pistol and kit.

He swiftly loaded the gun, keeping an eye on the woods between them and the road. Back around that vicinity they could hear someone cursing as their a.s.sailant discovered that the horse emerging onto the road was riderless.

Jackson grabbed the pistol with one hand while he tried to tug her away again with the other.

She held firm. "Why can't we just stand and fight?" she whispered.

With a scowl, he pressed his mouth to her ear. "Those shots were too close together to be from one firearm, so I'm outgunned and possibly outmanned. I'm not risking you in a fight that I might not win."

Eyes darkening, he pulled her forward. "Now come on. We've got to find a hiding place, or at least somewhere less exposed."

They started moving again, this time more slowly as he cautioned her to make as little noise as possible. Fortunately, their pursuer wasn't taking such care, which made it easier for them to head away from him. So she and Jackson scrambled over logs, darted across long stretches of beech, skirted the edge of a pond. She had no idea where they were going-she could see the sky through the barren branches overhead, but the sun was already too low for her to fix its location. Did Jackson have a plan, or was he just leading her blindly through the woods?

It seemed as if they'd been running forever when they began climbing a rise. Suddenly, Celia tripped and fell over something protruding up from the ground. As Jackson helped her up, his gaze narrowed on what had made her fall.

He kicked away some debris to reveal what looked like...

"A chimney?" she asked, perplexed.

He arranged the pile of debris back over the chimney, then said, "This way." Looping an arm about her waist, he tugged her to the edge of the hill, which fell abruptly before them. He glanced over it, then followed the curve of the hill down and pulled her around to the front of the cliff they'd just been standing on.

He pushed some dead vines aside. "It's a poacher's cottage," he murmured. "Sometimes they build them into the sides of hills to make them harder for the authorities to find."

As the sounds of someone cras.h.i.+ng through the brush above them came nearer, he shoved aside the vines to find a rotting door. He opened it, dragged her inside, then pulled the vines back over the opening before closing the door.

Touching his finger to his lips, he pulled her deep into the bowels of the long-abandoned cottage. At the back lay a hearth filled with debris, an open cupboard with a few cheap pans and various bits of crockery, a battered tin pail, and a bedstead with a moth-eaten blanket stretched halfway across a thin mattress. Pieces of straw stuck out from the mattress's worn cover.

"Stay here," he whispered, then went to the single window at the front of the cottage. So much growth lay over it that she doubted he could see much, though he tried, rubbing the panes with his elbow in a vain attempt to clear the grime.

Overhead came the sounds of hoofbeats, or perhaps even a couple of people tramping about. She couldn't be sure which. To her alarm, the activity shook some debris down the chimney into the hearth.

Oh, Lord, please don't let them see the chimney.

A sudden gunshot made her jump and clamp her hand over her mouth. Was their pursuer trying to get them to betray their hiding place? Or simply firing at shadows?

Casting her a warning look, Jackson returned his gaze to the window. He held his pistol at the ready, and she could tell from his grim expression that he was prepared to fight for her life.

The sounds of someone searching continued for what seemed like a long time. He and she stood frozen in their positions, until her back started to ache from being held stiff so long. She glided over to the mattress and sat down gingerly. He barely spared her a glance as he stood guard near the window.

It grew darker. This time of year the sun set at four, and since they'd left High Wycombe around two and had already been traveling for an hour when they were shot at, it would probably turn completely dark soon.

After a while, the sounds of searching moved away until all they could hear were the noises of the forest-birdsong, the rustle of small animals, wind whining through the trees.

She rose to approach Jackson. "Do you think they're gone?" she whispered.

"Probably. But we should stay put a while longer to be sure."

"Then what?"

It was barely light enough to see his face, but she could hear his breathing. "We'll stay here tonight. I fear we have no choice. By the time it's safe to leave it'll be too close to sunset, and there's no moon. We could never find our way back to the road through the woods in the dark, and even if we could, I'm not risking the possibility of your a.s.sailant lying in wait for us up ahead somewhere. We're lucky as it is that he-or she or them-didn't find us."

She digested that. "Are you sure it wasn't just an attempt at robbery?"

"In broad daylight? Hardly likely. Besides, there hasn't been a highwayman along this road in years. And why pursue us into the woods? A thief wouldn't go to that trouble if they hadn't been seen."

"So ... so they really were after us."

"You," he said harshly, his eyes dark with anger. "They were after you. It was you they fired at, your horse that was. .h.i.t."

"Lady Bell," she said in sudden anguish. "They shot Lady Bell."

"Only in the shoulder. She may still survive. With any luck, someone will find her on the road and care for her."

"I do hope so. Because I owe her a great debt. If she hadn't reared at the first shot, the one that missed, I might be lying in that road instead." A shudder wracked her. "And if you hadn't pulled me from the horse-"

"I lost half a lifetime when I realized-" He choked off whatever else he was about to say. "Best not to think about it." He squeezed her shoulder. "You survived, and that's all that matters."

"You saved my life."

He smiled faintly. "If you can't trust a Bow Street Runner to protect you, who can you trust?" His tone turned fierce. "I won't let anything happen to you, I swear."

"I know." She gazed up at him, her heart full.

He flushed, then jerked his gaze back to the window. "Can you hear anything?"

"Not anymore." She peered out the window, but all she could see were vines. "I don't understand how they found us. How could anybody have known I'd be traveling this way today, when even I didn't know?"

"Someone must have followed you when you left the house this morning."

"Why didn't they shoot me then?"

"You were carrying a rifle, remember? Perhaps they didn't want to risk it."

"Or perhaps it was you they followed."

"Though I told some people I was going off to pursue a lead, I deliberately didn't tell them where. And I can't see how anyone could have followed me without my realizing it."

"They wouldn't have had to follow closely," she said. "There's a hill where you can see the whole estate and the road. If they were watching for you from the hill, they would have seen us head off for High Wycombe together."

He nodded. "And they might have decided it was a good time to take their chance at eliminating you."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Because you heard something important the morning that your parents were killed? Because you know who the killer is without realizing it?"

"Then why not attack me on the road to High Wycombe? Weren't they worried about what I might learn from Nurse?"

"The road was too busy then, remember? They waited until it was deserted, when they were more likely to get away with murder."

"As they did with Benny."

"Exactly."

Her blood chilled. Someone had killed to silence Benny, had been willing to kill to silence her, probably the same someone in the nursery that day. It had to be Mama's lover, Captain Rawdon, because his wife wouldn't have known about Celia hearing that conversation.

But his being the killer made no sense in light of the facts. Besides, the Rawdons were in Gibraltar, as far as anyone knew.

"And there's another possibility," Jackson went on, his tone hard.

She swallowed, still having trouble comprehending that someone wanted her dead. "Oh?"

"Desmond might have decided to eliminate his compet.i.tion for your grandmother's fortune. If you marry, he loses all chance at it, so he may think that killing you would give him a shot since that would defeat your grandmother's demand."

"Surely he's not stupid enough to believe that Gran would hold to her ultimatum if something happened to one of us."