His assorted troops distributed themselves around Jared’s bedchamber leaving an armchair for Guinevere. ‘There is a jib door concealed in the panelling on each side of the small sitting room,’ he said without preliminaries. ‘In daylight they are obvious once you look, but at night they are not. Dover has arranged screens in front of each. Dover and I will be behind the door to the library, my father and Sir Andrew behind the other into the garden room. We will keep them locked until we hear someone in there and then open them slightly. Dover has oiled the locks.’
‘You are expecting Bainton to come to meet Mrs Quenten there?’ Sir Andrew asked.
‘I am, sir. I cannot believe that they will not say enough for an arrest. I will show myself the moment I feel we have reached that point but if you feel, as a magistrate, that you have heard sufficient, then you will emerge. Dover will go to block the outside door, my father, the inside one. I will take Bainton if you will deal with Mrs Quenten.’
‘You are Theo’s magistrate, the one who convinced the London Justice not to arrest him,’ Guinevere said. ‘I thought I recognised your name.’
Sir Andrew bowed slightly.
‘Why is Theo not here?’
‘We do not wish to compromise his position,’ the magistrate said. ‘Given the rumours and accusations, the less he has to do with this, the better.’
‘We had best go down now.’ Jared buckled on his sword belt, feeling comfortable for the first time since he had taken it off for dinner. He slid a long knife up the sleeve of his coat. ‘Lady Northam, do not forget to lock your door.’
‘Yes, Lord Ravenlaw.’ She spoke so meekly he looked at her, suspicious, but she said only, ‘Do take care, all of you.’
The house was falling silent around them as they filed downstairs and took up their positions in the dark. Voices floated up faintly from below stairs, then those ceased. Then there was Durrant’s heavy tread as he walked the corridors, stopping to turn the key in the sitting room door and pass on to his hooded chair in the front hall where he would pass the night, dozing.
Jared made himself relax, letting his shoulders drop, steadying his breathing. Beside him he heard Dover ease one shoulder against the wall, his ear close to the crack of the jib door. There would be nothing for a while.
The soft creak of a floorboard behind him sent him spinning round, the knife from his sleeve already in his hand before he saw the faint outline against the uncurtained window and smelled the drift of jasmine fragrance. ‘Guinevere?’
She came closer, her feet silent on the boards, and he realised she was without shoes and dressed in something simple and black.
‘Go away,’ he breathed. ‘Dangerous.’
‘Where you go, I go,’ she murmured.
He had her in his arms kissing her before he realised what he was doing. She clung, moulding herself against him even as he heard the faint rustle as Dover turned away and he got himself under control. ‘Guinevere – ’
She came up on tiptoe, her lips warm against his ear. ‘Always.’
His heart was thudding so loud that it took Dover’s elbow in his ribs to steady him. Then he heard it, the sound of the key in the sitting room door. Jared unlocked the jib door silently but left it closed. Light flooded across their feet then faded. Someone had brought a candle around the screen to check it. Inside the room he could just make out the sound of movement, then the rasp of the faulty lock on the outside door. He eased open the jib door by six inches at the same time and then stood listening. Beside him Guinevere and Dover were silent, still.
She loves me. I’m sure of it. He made himself concentrate, smelling the fresh moorland air coming into the room, hearing the cry of a barn owl, the creaks of the old house settling for the night, the soft-footed pacing of the woman in the room beyond.
‘Miss Lettie?’
Beside him Dover twitched, then steadied himself.
‘Come in.’ Mrs Quenten was speaking quietly but not whispering, she must feel safe. ‘How could you make such a mull of it, you fool? They should have been killed.’
‘Aye, they should and I don’t know why not, I wasn’t there, was I?’ Bainton sounded aggrieved. ‘That Hunt is a sharp bugger, he must have spotted something. What do we do now?’
‘Kill all three of them.’ She might have been giving orders to cull some chickens for dinner, Jared thought. Behind him he felt, rather than heard, Guinevere’s gasp. ‘Hunt’s in love with the bitch, or in lust with her, doesn’t matter which. He’ll be jealous if he thinks Master Theo’s getting between her legs. We need to kill her, then get Northam to her chamber, kill him with one of Hunt’s swords.’
‘What about Hunt?’ Thomas sounded incredulous.
As you should be, Jared thought grimly.
‘I’ll bang on his door in a panic, I’ll have heard something that alarmed me. He’ll be off like a dog after a bitch in heat. You hit him as he comes through the door, stab him in the chest.’
‘But, Miss Lettie – ’ He broke off at the sound of the door to the hall opening.
‘Ah, thought I’d find you in here. Good evening again, Mrs Quenten. And Thomas.’
‘Theo.’ Guinevere’s voice was a thread of sound holding pain and betrayal and anger all in two syllables.
‘’What are you doing here?’ Mrs Quenten demanded. There was a tremor under the harsh question.
‘Came to thank you.’ The door closed and Theo’s voice became clearer as he walked into the room. ‘My father was on the way out anyway, but dear Uncle Augustus was revolting healthy, I could see the old devil going on another twenty years, breeding sons, and he was cutting off my funds. You did me a favour, Cousin Elizabeth.’
‘How did you find out?’ She had moved closer to him.
Jared tried to read the amused drawl. Was Theo acting or was this real? Were his suspicions about him right after all? The tension coming off Guinevere was almost palpable. He made himself ignore it.
‘I’m not as stupid as people think. I worked it out. Still in a muddle over what you’ve got against Guinnie though, nice creature, would be good in bed, I’m thinking. Grateful after months of an old man. But never mind her. I know you killed Uncle Augustus and I know you’ve been trying to get me hanged for it. I’ll keep quiet if you stop trying to frame me.’
‘No, you’re not stupid, of course I had Thomas kill him. Julian will make a perfectly good earl, but my son Charles, he will be a great man. A very great man. As for your dear Guinnie, she killed her first husband, my brother. She’ll pay for that, keep on paying.’
Jared eased the door open, stepped out behind the screen as he heard her move again. The long knife was in his hand, beside him Dover moved too, a glint of metal betraying that he too had drawn a weapon.
‘But you are foolish, even so, Cousin. You forget you are still in my way. Kill him, Thomas.’
‘Not so foolish that I don’t have witnesses.’ Theo was laughing, even as he gave a grunt of effort and there was the sound of a blow, fist on flesh.
Jared pushed the screen over, Dover went for the outside door, there was a thud and light flared up as the draft of the falling screen fanned the candle flame. Across the room two large figures burst in and his father strode to the hall door, his back against it, a pistol raised.
On the floor was a tangle of limbs. Jared heaved aside the screen, rolled away Theo’s limp body and hauled Thomas Bainton to his feet. With a scream of fury Lettie Quenten launched herself at him, past him, and he realised she had seen Guinevere. The wildly flaring light caught the gleam of steel in her hand. Thomas cut at him, the pain sharp and hot down his forearm and he parried instinctively, followed through with a kick in the groin that sent the man falling into Sir Andrew’s arms. Behind him the jib door slammed closed on Guinevere and a madwoman with a knife.
There was no light except for star-glow from the window. Guin backed away rapidly, her bare feet finding the edge of the carpet. How far to the library table and a paper-knife?
She groped behind her with her hand as she edged back from the hissed obscenities. At least I can hear her. Can she hear me? Lettie had been in a room with a light, her night vision must be worse than Guin’s, which was some comfort. Not a lot. There was a thud as something hit the door to the sitting room but the woman must have locked it behind her. How long before Jared could get there?
Guin hit the edge of the table and bit back a cry of pain. She threw out her hands for balance and found the paperknife. It skidded away across the polished surface and fell with a clatter on the far side. She swept her hand across again and found something else, something heavy. Her hands closed round it and the contents shifted.
The sand-sifter for blotting ink. Lettie was almost on her now, she could see her shape, solid and black, menacing, and the movement of the knife as she reached out in front with it, sweeping it back and forth. There was a bang as the door to the hallway flew open, crashed back against a bookcase and the top of the pewter sifter shifted in her twisting hands, unscrewed.
Lettie lunged for her as the room seemed to fill with light. She heard Jared swear at someone as she blinked, dazed in the glare, then threw the sifter straight at the blade.
There was a scream and she saw Lettie Quenten flail her arms, scrub at her eyes one-handed. Jared moved towards her, rapier out, blood running down over his sword hand. As Lettie went for him he reversed the weapon, brought the pommel in his clenched fist up under her chin and hit her, sending her backwards into a sprawling fall.
Guin scrambled after the knife the other woman dropped but Jared was already rolling the limp body over, tying Lettie’s hands with some of the red document tape from the library table.
She went down on her knees beside him.
‘Did she touch you?’ He let Lettie fall back onto her back without ceremony and caught Guin by the shoulders. ‘Guinevere, my heart. Hell, you frightened me.’
‘I’m all right. Theo?’
‘Bruised jaw and a bang on the head from where I pushed the screen on top of him.’
‘He was acting, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes. He caught Sir Andrew on his way down here, told him what he intended. Apparently he is quite capable of lip-reading enough in a mirror to have an idea of what we were planning to do about the sitting room door.’
‘Thank goodness. I believed in him, but that gave me a nasty moment.’
‘My evening has been a series of nasty moments,’ Jared said with feeling. ‘Finding you behind me when I thought you safe in your chamber, hearing Theo’s heroics, seeing that door slam on you and this creature.’
‘You are hurt. Take off your coat, let me see your arm.’
‘It’s nothing, a clean cut.’ Jared sat back on his heels and let her pull off the coat, rip the tear in his shirt until she could look at his forearm. Guin swallowed. Hard.
‘See? A nice tidy slash.’ Jared pushed the edges of the slice together with thumb and forefinger of the opposite hand. ‘That will stitch up easily enough. Guinevere?’
He caught her as she slumped inelegantly towards the floor. ‘I almost fainted,’ she said as she was pulled to her feet and planted unceremoniously in a chair. ‘I never faint.’
‘It is almost a relief to discover that you are not perfect after all,’ Jared said as Dover came through the door at a run, stopped dead and huffed out a breath. ‘Are you hurt, my lady?’
‘No, but Lord Ravenlaw is. His arm is slashed’
‘The Earl has sent for the doctor already, my lady. What with Lord Northam seeing double and Bainton’s broken nose – Lord Northam has a punishing left – and Sir Andrew getting hit on the shoulder by the screen falling it’s like a battlefield hospital in there.’
‘Is my father all right?’
‘Yes, sir. If you’ll excuse me saying so, he’s having the time of his life.’
‘What on earth is going on?’ Bella stood in the doorway, a robe covering her nightgown and her hair in a plait over one shoulder. ‘Is that Lettie tied up on the floor? And Jared, your arm. You are bleeding all over the rug.’
‘Everyone is all right,’ Guin said. ‘But Lettie had Bainton murder Augustus and she was behind the attacks on me because my first husband was her brother. Sir Andrew is a Justice of the Peace and so is the Earl, of course, so they are arresting them both.’ She held out her hand to Bella. ‘I know she is your friend, and this is all going to be horrible now, with a trial. I’m sorry, Bella.’
‘You are sorry?’ Bella came into the room and sat down on a chair next to Guin. ‘I’ve known her for almost two years and I never realised. Those poor children. And her husband. He isn’t the brightest of men, but he was devoted to her.’
‘I know. We will have to help them somehow.’