CHAPTER 30
Vendetta
“Father, we need to take shelter,” Seth said, while beside him, Elias Flynn peered through the folding telescope that had been glued to his eye all day.
Flynn said nothing in reply, but slowly lowered the telescope and folded it. He seemed impervious to the increasingly temperamental weather.
Seth masked his impatience. This was hardly the father-son holiday he’d always dreamed of, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “The man at the last inn said there’s a town not far south of here.”
“Use your eyes.” Father nodded toward the drive of the estate where Amberley’s party had gone. “Have a look.” He handed him the folding telescope, and Seth lifted it to his eye.
From their perch atop a windy ridge about a half-mile away, they had a clear view of the misshapen estate and the drive leading to it.
Seth went very still. “A carriage is leaving. He’s opening the gates.”
“One day you’ll learn to trust me.”
Seth could not help but marvel. His father seemed undaunted by the grueling hours of travel.
While Seth felt wrung out, achy and exhausted, the seventy-year-old man beside him had seemed only to grow stronger throughout the day, driven by a maniacal intensity, perhaps, to see his vendetta against Lucinda through once and for all.
For his part, Seth was still recovering from the thrashing he had taken at Amberley’s hands last night.
Pain had further slowed his pace today, not to mention his annoyance at everyone on the way here staring at him on the roads and the inns. You’d think they’d never seen black eyes before, plum-colored bruises, swollen jaws, men who limped with cracked ribs.
Of course, Father had taken scarce pity on him during the day, driving on endlessly, powered by rage. Now he seemed prepared to weather the storm out here on this naked hillside with nothing but a few mounds of gorse for their cover.
Seth was tempted to leave the mad old bastard there to finish his quest alone, but, naturally, he did not dare. It was his fault that all this had happened, anyway. So they watched and they waited, but at least they need travel no farther in chasing their quarry.
A few minutes passed, and Seth thrilled to see that the driver left the gates open behind him.
They both ducked down like lion stalking prey when the carriage rumbled closer, heading toward them down the road.
“Should we make a run for it? There’s a folly on the grounds where we could—”
“Wait.” Father stared, assessing the situation.
Three minutes passed. Four. The storm fired a few warning shots in their faces. Cold, angry bullets of rain.
“What are we waiting for, Father? Full darkness? I’m sure they won’t see us—”
“Hold!” Father snapped, staring again through the telescope. “You must’ve failed to observe there’s no cover once we get through the gates. It’s all open ground. We’ll never get near the duke.”
A moment later, Seth saw once again that he should have trusted the old cutthroat’s instincts.
It was damned lucky they hadn’t gone charging in when he had wanted to, or they’d have been caught. The tall, brawny soldier they had seen driving the ladies’ coach all day galloped up to the gatehouse just then, swung down from his horse, and instantly clanged the gates shut.
The sound of it carried to them on the gale.
Seth frowned and turned to his father. “Do you think they know we’re here?”
“No. They just know they’re in trouble, that’s all.”
Locked out again, Seth wasn’t sure what his father wanted to do next, but he could feel the old man brooding, thinking it over.
When the plain black coach passed them on the road right beneath the hill where they sat, Father scrutinized the driver through the telescope.
“Servant,” he reported. “No one inside.” As the coach hurried off down the road, Father turned to Seth. “Tell me, son, what would Mother do if twenty people showed up at our country house without any warning?”
Seth considered. “She’d want to feed them, of course.”
“But what if she wasn’t expecting so many mouths to feed, eh?”
“She’d send a man out for supplies. Ah…”
“He’ll be back.” Father nodded toward the road.
“Until then?”
“Be patient.”
Seth heaved a sigh and leaned back against the boulder, taking a swig from his flask to dull the pain all over his aching body. Thunder rumbled. His misery climbed as the temperature dropped.
Lightning stabbed at them from the dark sky but missed.
At last, an hour later, the carriage came trundling back, laden with supplies. They saw its front lanterns gleaming feebly in the now-inky gloom as it neared, and heard the horses’ nervous whinnies. The clip-clopping of their approaching hoofbeats picked up speed as they scented home.
Father climbed to his feet and slapped Seth on the shoulder. “Come on now. It’s time.”
Before he quite grasped what his father was about, Elias was already striding down the hill.
“Father, what are you doing?” Seth whispered loudly.
“What do you think? We’re taking the carriage. We’ll use it to get inside.”
“But the staff will know that we don’t belong there!”
“Nonsense. If anyone from the manor asks who we are, we’ll say we came in with the duke’s entourage. And if any of the duke’s men should see us, we’ll say we’re part of the staff here. That’s why I told you to dress plain. Need to be ready for all eventualities. Now, come on, dullard, we mustn’t miss him.”
Seth thought it was madness, but knew all too well by now that there was no point in arguing. Instead, he just shook his head, then trudged down the rough slope after his sire.
“How do you mean to kill him?”
His father looked askance at him. “Silently,” he said with a smirk. Then he took a length of garrote wire out of his pocket and wrapped it around his two hands.
“It’s been a while,” Flynn remarked as the carriage rumbled closer down the road. “Let’s hope I haven’t lost my touch. Otherwise, it might be up to you. And we both know how that’s likely to turn out.”
Seth gave him a hard look. But Father needn’t have worried. Unfortunately for the wagon’s driver, the old rookery rat hadn’t lost his touch at all.
While Seth stepped out of the darkness in front of the horses, lifted his arms, and said, “Whoa,” Father sprang up onto the driver’s box like a goblin and attacked Her Grace’s astonished employee.
It only took moments.
The horses had halted, though they tossed their heads and pawed the gravel in protest.
Seth ran to assist his fierce sire.
As the driver slumped out of his seat, a dead weight, the corpse fell heavily onto Seth. He caught it with a wince, then dragged the dead man off into a drainage ditch by the roadside and hastily covered the body with vegetation.
By the time he turned around, Father was already sitting on the driver’s box with the reins in his hands. He nodded behind him with a glint of wild satisfaction in his eyes.
“Get in the back, boy!” Then he put on the dead man’s hat and pulled the brim lower over his eyes.
Seth swung up into the carriage and ducked out of sight, his heart still pounding.
Father drove on.
Seth took a deep breath and looked around to gain his bearings. The most delicious smells filled his nostrils, and as his eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness inside the carriage, he found it filled with baskets and hampers with warm, scrumptious food of all kinds. Seth’s mouth watered.
Killing did not dull his appetite. Not after all those years at war.
While Father drove the carriage up to the gates, Seth reached into one of the hampers stacked up on the coach floor and helped himself to a wedge of cheese, a hunk of ham, and a few rolls.
Ahh, the rolls were still warm. They were heavenly on a cold, wet night like this. Just getting out of the constant wind was a boon. He ate one of the rolls on the way to the gates and put a few more in his knapsack for later.
Then the coach slowed and he lay down sideways on the squabs to keep out of sight, listening.
Holding his breath, he waited to see if the soldier Amberley had posted at the gatehouse would realize that a different man had driven the carriage back from the one who had driven it out.
Apparently not.
For, in the next moment, Seth heard the lock being undone and could not resist a cautious peek over the edge of the carriage window to see if the guard posted there seemed at all suspicious.
The man barely looked at Father.
A cynical smile curved Seth’s lips when he spotted some pretty blond woman who had apparently come out to bring the soldier some comforts for his long night watch—a lantern, an oilskin to keep him dry, and a serving of rations.
The two were so absorbed in their flirting that the smiling soldier barely took his eyes off the blonde long enough to unlock the gates and haul them open.
He waved the expected carriage back onto the property with nary a glance at old Mister Garrote. Seth shook his head in amazement that his father’s plan had worked. But why was he not used to it by now? Elias Flynn had not become a king of the London underworld by lacking nerve, resourcefulness, or wit.
It all went exactly as the old bastard predicted. They parked the carriage outside the kitchen entrance around the back in an area that looked about right for receiving deliveries, then they abandoned it, slipping into the workaday regions of the manor without anybody questioning them.
They just acted like they knew what the hell they were doing. Seth found it fun. Father’s glance told him he thought so, too.
Oddly enough, it was the closest Seth had ever felt to his father.
Perhaps they had bonded over killing that poor bastard together. To be sure, Father never could’ve done that with his darling Francis.
Then the rain hit, and an army of servants scrambled outside to start carrying in the food they had just delivered.
“Where’s Jackson?” the cook asked, looking puzzled and frumpy in her apron.
“The coach is back, so I’m sure he’s here somewhere, ma’am,” said a hurried footman. “Does anyone have an umbrella?”
Seth and his father politely stepped out of the way.
“Do you boys need anything?” the footman called to them, mid-scurry.
“Er, no, thanks,” Father said quickly. “We serve the duke.”
“He wanted to know how long until dinner,” Seth chimed in.
The man blanched. “Please give His Grace our apologies. It’ll be ready in no time. Everyone, hurry!” The footman dashed off to help the effort underway to carry the food into the kitchens and get it served before it got any colder for the great Duke of Amberley.
Seth slid his father a sly glance. Father chuckled.
Then they walked slowly and deliberately, oh so casually, through the maze of workrooms. Passing the scullery with its big sinks and draining holes in the cold flagstone floor made Seth think of Saffie.
But he pushed her out of his mind. Just another reminder of his previous failures to impress his father. Tonight, surely, was the last chance he’d ever get. He had to make the best of it.
Father beckoned him down another hallway and into an ancient-looking stairwell with a low, arched ceiling. The next thing he knew, they were holed up in the dim, dank wine cellar, where they retreated to the darkest corner available.
Finally, they could relax, still dripping rain and shaking with the thrill of what they’d done.
“See? Easy. I told you.” Father took off his spectacles and polished away a few flecks of road dust and rain.
“You did,” Seth said. Reaching into his knapsack, he offered his father a bread roll.
Flynn took it and tore off a bite.
“So, what do we do now?” Seth asked.
“Now we wait,” Father replied through a mouthful.
“For what?”
“Till they all go to sleep.”
“And then what?”
“Killin’ time, lad.”
Seth paused, bracing himself. “It won’t work.”
He hated to say it, and his father clearly didn’t like hearing it.
“What do you know?” the old cutthroat retorted, scowling at him.
“With all due respect, sir, you’re not killin’ this man. He’s too good.”
“Eh, you’ve let him get inside your head,” Father said with a dismissive wave. “Leave it to me. Everyone’s got to sleep sometime.”
“Fine. So you use your wire on him, then? He wakes up and kills you. He’s unbelievably strong. How do you think I ended up looking like this?” Seth pointed at his mangled face. “He’ll snap your neck like a rabbit’s, sir.”
Father shrugged. “So you say.”
“Very well. Let’s say you find his room, shoot him the moment he closes his eyes. The sound wakes the whole household. They catch us; we hang. I’m not liking these plans, sir.”
“Well, what do you suggest, then?”
As his answer, Seth broke off a small piece of cheese from the wedge he had stolen. He placed it on the mousetrap set up nearby, then gave his father a meaningful look. “All we need is the bait, sir. Then we can kill him with ease. Trust me, he won’t even fight.”